Eric Adams declared winner of the primary, most likely next NYC mayor
Eric Adams won the Democratic nomination in the race to replace Mayor Bill de Blasio — eking out a narrow victory in the ranked-choice primary, according to a preliminary count of the final vote tally Tuesday evening.
Adams emerged narrowly ahead of Kathryn Garcia, 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent, according to unofficial figures posted on the BOE’s website.
Adams declared the primary race over in an evening statement.
“While there are still some very small amounts of votes to be counted, the results are clear: an historic, diverse, five-borough coalition led by working-class New Yorkers has led us to victory in the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City,” he said.
“Now we must focus on winning in November so that we can deliver on the promise of this great city for those who are struggling, who are underserved, and who are committed to a safe, fair, affordable future for all New Yorkers.”
The 403,333 votes for Adams gave him an edge of 8,426 over Garcia, who got 394,907.
The margin is less than the 14,755-vote spread Adams enjoyed after last week’s count — but it appears to be enough to ensure his victory.
That’s because there are only 942 of about 126,000 absentee ballots left to count, due to technical errors that voters will be allowed to correct.
The tentative deadline to fix those ballots is Friday.
During a BOE meeting earlier in the day, acting executive director Dawn Sandow told the commissioners there were 3,699 absentee ballots left to be counted.
But that number was later revised downward by a spokeswoman who said the deadline for the remainder had already expired.
The blunder was the latest to plague the primary race, which was thrown into chaos last week when the BOE botched its first count of the ranked-choice votes.
There is also an unknown number of affidavits that have yet to be counted, the BOE spokeswoman said.
A total of about 36,000 affidavit ballots were cast but the majority were disqualified and cannot be corrected — and it’s unclear how many remain and will be valid.
A Garcia campaign spokeswoman said, “We are currently seeking additional clarity on the number of outstanding ballots and are committed to supporting the Democratic nominee.”
Adams, 60, is the outgoing Brooklyn borough president and a former state senator and NYPD captain.
His campaign focused heavily on restoring public safety amid a surge in shootings — including two recently in the heart of Times Square — that endanger the city’s economic recovery from the COVIVD-19 pandemic.
Adams, who is seeking to become the city’s second black mayor, has said he favors reviving and reforming the NYPD’s undercover units to focus on seizing illegal guns and has also called the controversial “stop-and-frisk” tactic a necessary part of policing.
Tuesday’s results were based on the addition of the absentee ballots, which weren’t factored in when the BOE on Wednesday updated its initial — and incorrect — count of ranked-choice votes.
The massive screw-up was the result of bumbling officials having failed to clear 135,000 fake ballots that were entered into a BOE computer system for a test run ahead of the city’s first ranked-choice elections.
Red-faced board members later held a secret — and apparently illegal — meeting to discuss the humiliating blunder, which marked the latest in a string of snafus that have plagued city elections run by the patronage-riddled elections agency.
Following the meeting, board president Frederic Umane, a Manhattan Republican, told The Post that one or more unidentified BOE employees made the mistake, saying, “This was not a vendor error.”
The introduction of ranked-choice voting made the Democratic primary into a closer race by dramatically boosting Garcia’s numbers throughout the process, but Adams never surrendered his lead after the initial round of first-choice, in-person votes on June 22’s primary night.
Maya Wiley, who was eliminated in the second-to-last round of Tuesday’s ranked-choice count, said, “It would be an understatement to express dismay at the BOE’s administration of this election.”
Wiley also mocked the BOE for a mid-morning tweet in which it promised that the timing of Tuesday’s results would be “more brunch special vs. club hours.”
After the results were released around 6:40 p.m., Wiley said “that has made today’s brunch at dinnertime, a long and drawn-out day for New Yorkers.”
The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in the Nov. 2 general election to succeed de Blasio, a two-term Democrat who was barred from seeking re-election by term limits.
The city’s Democrats outnumber Republicans about 7 to 1, and the Big Apple hasn’t elected a GOP candidate for mayor since Michael Bloomberg ran in 2001 and 2005. He was re-elected in 2009 as an independent.
