The Big Winner of the NYC Mayor’s Race Was Ranked-Choice Voting

Lee Drutman wrote about the introduction of ranked-choice voting to New York City primary elections for New York Magazine.

By any measure, the ranked-choice voting part of the election was a resounding success. Despite fears it would be too complicated, New Yorkers overwhelmingly found it easy and straightforward to rank. Primary turnout hit its highest levels in more than 20 years. And as the counting continues, New Yorkers find themselves watching an unexpectedly tight race unfold between Eric Adams and Kathryn Garcia — who only a week ago seemed out of the running.

How much of this can we attribute directly to ranked-choice voting? Let’s look at what happened. The mayoral race attracted a wide range of high-quality candidates, and quite a lot of media attention. The race was interesting because it was uncertain and competitive — and it was uncertain and competitive in large part because of ranked-choice voting. Meanwhile, Garcia’s late surge appears to be driven by the fact that she was the second choice of many New Yorkers, the exact sort of result ranked-choice voting is supposed to facilitate.

For those who still need a refresher on how ranked-choice voting works in a single-winner election: Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If one candidate has a majority of first-choice rankings, that candidate is declared the winner. If there’s no majority winner, the candidate with fewest votes gets eliminated. Voters who selected that candidate as their first choice then have their votes transferred to their second choice. Votes get re-tabulated. If there’s a majority winner, the counting ends. If there’s no majority winner, the process continues, with candidates getting eliminated until one candidate gets a majority.

What this means in practice is that more candidates become relevant. In a simple plurality election, there’s a strong tendency to focus on the top two or three candidates, and to consolidate around a clear front-runner. Once a race dynamic gets set early, candidates outside the top two or three tend to struggle to gain media attention, fundraising, and activist support because they are not seen as being relevant.

But under a ranked system, where second, third, fourth, and fifth preferences are also relevant, more candidates see a potential shot at winning. More candidates become relevant. Voters want to know about more candidates. Candidates campaign more broadly to score second- and third-place rankings. Candidates form alliances — the most notable in New York being the alliance between Garcia and Andrew Yang, whose supporters were asked to rank Garcia second. The race becomes more dynamic, and more interesting.