06.27 Primary Election Aftermath

Now we wait until July for results, but here's what we know!

Jun 27

THANK YOU

Yo, thank YOU to our SPV community for sharing the voter guide. We reached over 14.4k users on IG and 11k of that were people OUTSIDE of the SPV network. That’s badass. In the week leading up to Primary Day, our IG posts made over 78k impressions. And for those of y’all who donated to SPV—THANK YOU!—it does not go unnoticed!

NYC PRIMARY RESULTS

Hey, y’all! We did it. We voted in our FIRST ranked-choice-voting Primary. The General Election in November will not be ranked. RCV brings a lot of equity and fairness to the table. Before 2020 candidates could win a race with a majority and in some cases only 21% of the vote! That’s not right. Now, with Ranked Choice Voting, a candidate needs 50%+1 to win—this makes sense.

We’ve got the unofficial in-person first-round results and they are illuminating. It’s estimated that there have been 930,000 Dem votes cast—the highest primary voter turnout since David Dinkins (NYC’s first and only Black mayor) was elected in 1989—and absentee ballots are still rolling in. Though this is much higher than the 437,000 who showed up for the 2017 mayoral primary, it’s still <10% of New Yorkers…

Here’s our roundup of what we know:

MAYOR’S RACE

Yes, Eric Adams has a sizable lead. But since no candidate received 50%+1 of the vote, ranked-choice-voting will be triggered. (YAY)
Maya Wiley is in 2nd place and still has a good chance of winning—we don’t yet know the #2 choices on peoples’ ballots so it’s bound to be a wild ride!
Andrew Yang came in 4th and simply conceded.
It should also be noted that Adams outraised (real estate PAC $$) Wiley and Garcia 2:1 and 3:1 respectively, Paperboy Prince did wonders with very little money, and being rich (or having a rich dad) doesn’t get you more than 3% of the vote 🥴.

CITY COUNCIL

If the unofficial in-person election night tallies hold, women may gain a majority representation for the first time in city council history. Marjorie Velazquez (CD-13) and Jen Gutierrez (CD-34) are some of the confirmed new wins—we think it’s safe to celebrate Sandy Nurse of CD-37 too—and Gotham Gazette went district by district, going over all the flips in representation.
Tiffany Caban (CD-22) will join Zohran Mamdani and AOC as Democratic Socialist of America endorsed representatives for Northwestern Queens—making Astoria one of the only places in the USA with DSA reps at every level of government!
Moumita Ahmed and Anthony Beckford lost their respective races to dusty Dems who are backed by Trump supporting real estate moguls. If you’ll remember, James Gennaro (CD-24) had help from Stephen Ross to try and smear Moumita Ahmed in the CD-24 special election while Farah Louis (CD-45) made it to the list of candidates helped by Common Sense NYC (a Stephen Ross funded PAC). We were hopeful for change in these districts and, in the case of CD-24, South Asian representation in city government.

PUBLIC ADVOCATE

Jumaane Williams has been reelected as public advocate! No surprises here, but still, so happy to have him continue fighting for us in that role.

COMPTROLLER

Brad Lander, our #1, holds an almost 9 point lead in the comptroller's race over Corey Johnson, the late addition and mayor’s race dropout, who bungled all the goodwill in the world during last summer’s budget negotiations.

SURROGATE COURT

The Brooklyn Dem party machine had a major loss with the BK Surrogate’s Court race and we couldn’t be happier. BK Dem party boss backed Dweynie Esther Paul, whose claim to fame is exploiting a home care worker, lost to Rosemarie Montalbano who has expressed a desire to help low-income communities create generational wealth. Cool!

DISTRICT ATTORNEY

Alvin Bragg is being considered the winner for Manhattan District Attorney with a slight lead over Tali Farhadian Weinstein! Although he wasn’t our pick, he’s actually pretty revolutionary compared to Weinstein as well as every other DA out there. Our favorite, Eliza Orlins didn’t make the cut, but we are proud of her grassroots campaign that pushed many of the other candidates left!

SCHEDULE FOR RESULTS

Ranked-choice voting will be triggered in all the races that didn’t have a 50%+1 winter (so like, most races lol).
Tuesday, 06.29: Deadline for absentee ballots to arrive. In-person ballot tabulation begins.
07.12: Absentee ballots counted the week of July 12th to allow for the BoE to double-check the voter rolls and for oath envelope cure time.
With over 90k absentee ballots already received by the BOE and approximately 130k more outstanding, we might possibly see some dramatic swings in a handful of races.

SOFT POWER VOTE PODCAST

Check out our first mini-podcast series where we speak activists, policy wonks, and designers breathing new life into the June Primary.

Episode 1: Design and Politics with Jiar Zeman
- Remember Dianne Morales? Well, Jiar was the creative mind behind the Morales campaign re-brand. She dives into language equity on political collateral and how she brings campaigns to life with design.
Episode 2: Community and Co-Governance with Elizabeth Adams (CD-33 candidate)
- Elizabeth would be the first woman to represent this district (BK-waterfront) and she brings with her a stacked resume of advocacy with Planned Parenthood and as the legislative director fo the current council member for CD-33. city
Episode 3: Running as an Ally with Aleda Gagarin (CD-29 candidate)
- Aleda Gagarin was SO easy to chat with. She’s a natural leader, public speaker, and people person. Last year she was the campaign manager for her partner’s congressional bid, Mel Gagarin, and this year, he’s managing HER campaign. How do they do it?! Not only that, Aleda decided to run because her community asked her to. So what does it mean to run as an ally? We chat about family, politics, and where to get a cute snack in central Queens.

CIVIC MERCH!

Soft Power Vote tees are super cute, VERY SOFT, and designed by artists Gonzalo Guerrero of Secret Riso Club and Justin Hager. Venmo or Cashapp $35 to @SoftPowerVote and rep NYC voting :) DM us to secure the tee or if you have any Qs!

WE’RE GOING MONTHLY

We’ll be going monthly until the lead-up to the General Election in November, but our DMs are always open! Feel free to hit us up on IG or Twitter @SoftPowerVote or shoot us an email at softpowervote@gmail.com.

Stay tuned for our next newsletter with all the certified primary results.

Soft Power Vote

Soft Power Vote is an independent initiative founded by three New Yorkers who wanted more out of voting. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and check out our website. Our linktree is stacked with civic engagement links like checking on your voter registration status, finding your poll site, and the holy grail: finding your representatives! If you have the bandwidth, support our work via Venmo or Cash App (@softpowervote).