Eric Adams, Brooklyn borough president and former police officer, has won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary.
The perceived front-runner in the race, Adams, 60, would be the city’s second black mayor if he wins the general election in November.
Results from the latest tabulations released Tuesday showed him leading former city sanitation commissioner Garcia by 8,426 votes, or a little more than 1 percentage point.
“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,” Adams said in a statement.
“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 added.
Last week, Adams, Garcia, and Wiley had all filed lawsuits after the city’s Board of Elections released an inaccurate vote tally in the Democratic primary.
It came after the city’s Election Board said it inadvertently included some 135,000 old “test ballots” to the count. The agency, which is run by Democrats and Republicans, released the data as part of a simulation of how ranked-choice voting would play out following the initial count of votes.
As part of the ranked-choice ballots system, less popular candidates were eliminated and their votes were distributed to a voter’s second, third or fourth choice.
Erroneous vote tallies were posted for several hours before officials acknowledged the error and the board was forced to rescind them.
Adams, 60, opposes the “defund the police” movement.
“We’re not going to recover as a city if we turn back time and see an increase in violence, particularly gun violence,” Adams said after three people including a 4-year-old girl were shot and wounded in Times Square in May.
“If black lives really matter, it can’t only be against police abuse. It has to be against the violence that’s ripping apart our communities,” he told supporters the night of the primary.
He faces Curtis Sliwa, the Republican founder of the Guardian Angels, in the general election. Adams is heavily favored to win because Democrats outnumber Republicans 7-to-1 in the city.
