Thursday, October 1, 2026
New York City has been the site of countless events that have shaken its residents, now numbering 8 million. It endured the Mad Bomber of the 1940s and ’50s, the Son of Sam murders in the ’70s, the tragedy of Sept. 11, the coronavirus health scare, and as many other happenings as you can think of. On Primary Day, June 24, a majority of voters chose Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, as their potential mayor, and once again the city has been shaken to its roots.
Never in my lifetime have I been asked so many questions about a political result, because this one has created a stir of a magnitude that I’ve never experienced. How could voters elect a Muslim socialist to the highest office in the Big Apple? Many said they didn’t understand the ranked-choice voting process, which they thought was crazy. Whether you agree or not with the process and/or the result, come November, the likely result will be that a political novice will be put in charge of running one of the most important cities in the world.
The head-splitting ranked-choice voting system came into being in New York City in 2019, when a proposition was placed on the ballot. In 2021, the system was officially in effect, and it helped Mayor Eric Adams get elected to his first term. It allows voters to choose multiple candidates and to pair them with other candidates. This year, there is no doubt that Mamdani was the beneficiary of this confusing system. With Adams having declared that he would run as an independent and therefore would not take part in the primary, the contest was wide open.
As we approached the primary, it appeared that only two candidates, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mamdani, had any momentum. Cuomo and Mamdani are complete opposites in any way you can imagine. Cuomo ran a so-called “Rose Garden” campaign, resting on his laurels as a former governor with universal name recognition. Mamdani, in contrast, ran a picture-perfect populist campaign, with thousands of volunteers ringing doorbells across the city and sophisticated phone banks making calls night after night. Cuomo was overwhelmed.
The results spoke for themselves, with Mamdani declared the winner by a wide margin. At this point, Adams is still in the race, and there are rumors that he is also trying to secure the Republican nomination if he can persuade Curtis Sliwa to drop out. Cuomo may or may not run on his own independent line. And there is no doubt that the voters who couldn’t vote in the primary are itching to go to the polls in November to stop Mamdani from becoming the next mayor.
The political dilemma that voters face all goes back to the city’s opting for to the ranked-choice system. It is used in elections in such diverse places as Minnesota and Alaska, and efforts are being made by so-called “good government groups” to get other cities and states to embrace the concept. There is no doubt that the ranked-choice process gave Mamdani the advantage in the primary.
Assuming he wins in November, the big question is whether he can govern a city that has such burdensome issues. He has served in the State Assembly for four years, but he has no other governmental experience. He is very articulate, but you can’t run the biggest city in the country with well-chosen words alone. If I were one of his advisers, I’d suggest he buy a ticket to London and meet the Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan. Mamdani might get some good advice.
For anyone who is contemplating running for public office, the city primary results offer lots of clues about how to win — and lose — an election. And the best advice I can give is don’t run in an election that uses the ranked-choice voting system.
