Boro Parkers Must Rank Five Candidates to Avoid Giving Votes Away to Liberal Candidates

By Yehudit Garmaise

     After six months of intense campaigning and four debates, the two most recent polls show the race to be between Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who leads the way, showing 23% of the support of New York voters, and Maya Wiley, who previously served as an attorney for Mayor Bill de Blasio and who has 18% of the vote, according to the latest poll that was taken by PIX/Emerson College. 

    In third place with 17% of the vote was Katherine Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner. Voters put businessman Andrew Yang in fourth place, with 14% of New Yorkers’ support. 

    In addition, today, a New York Post poll revealed an identical ranking of candidates to that of the PIX/Emerson poll. 

    “You’re heading into a close three-way race [between Adams, Wiley, and Garcia], and any one of the three can win,” said Pollster John McLaughlin, whose firm McLaughlin & Associates conducted the Post’s poll. “Adams is in the lead, but it’s a tenuous lead.

      With more than a fifth of respondents who say they still undecided, the race can head in many different directions.

     “Maya Wiley has gotten a lot of momentum from the AOC endorsement,” McLaughlin said. “It’s a liberal primary.”

     To win the New York City mayoral primary, a candidate must win 50% of voters’ support, which low-voter turnout usually does not provide, therefore the city is debuting its ranked-choice voting system, in which voters’ second and third choices will be added to the frontrunner’s votes, until a candidate achieves 50% of voters’ support. 

     Boro Parkers, therefore, should think very carefully about not just their favorite candidate for mayor, but the order of their preferences for five candidates for mayor, said Yoel Rosenfeld.

     “Some polls show that the mayoral election might go 10 rounds, until we get a winner,’ Mr. Rosenfeld said, “therefore, it is very important to rank as many candidates as possible with whom our community can work.”

    In other words, if Boro Parkers write in only one candidate who is eliminated from the mayoral primary race, their votes will be wasted, and essentially will be cast for Wiley or Garcia, who do not share the same values as the Orthodox Jewish community.

    “The number of candidates on the ballot makes it highly unlikely that any one of them will crack 50% on the first round,” said Chaskel Bennett, who is a co-founder of the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition. “Rank-choice voting gives voters the opportunity to rank second and third choices, who may not be their ideal candidates, may be far better than other candidates, who are definitely not preferred.

     “It is thus crucial to list your extra choices in case your Number One candidate falls short.”