Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has won the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, setting himself up as the overwhelming favorite to win the general election in November.
The Associated Press called the race for Adams shortly after the latest batch of results in the ranked-choice primary were released on Tuesday afternoon.
Adams, a former police captain who entered primary voting as the front-runner, bested a crowded field of Democrats, including former New York City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley.
Adams will face off against GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels.
Just before the race was called, Adams said in a statement that “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.”
“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,” he said.
In a tally by the New York City Board of Elections on Tuesday, Adams held a slim 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent lead over Garcia after holding a 51.1 percent to 48.9 percent lead last week.
Wiley placed third last week in the eighth round of counting, meaning she was eliminated in the ninth and final round.
The race is the first in which the board sought to implement ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to list five candidates in order of preference.
If no candidate passes the 50 percent threshold in the first round of counting, then the candidate with the least support is eliminated, and votes are tallied again until a winner is declared.
But last week, the process was thrown into chaos after the New York City Board of Elections reported that around 135,000 test-run “votes” had not been cleared from the system and were counted as part of the unofficial results.
The botched count garnered criticisms of the board from from both the candidates themselves and Republicans.