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Ex-police captain Eric Adams takes early lead in New York mayoral primary

<span>Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Brooklyn’s borough president, Eric Adams, appeared to take a fragile lead in New York’s Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday, but it could be weeks before it becomes clear who is on top in the first citywide election to use ranked choice voting.

As ballot counting began, more Democrats ranked Adams as their first choice in the race than any other candidate.

However, it was not clear whether that lead would hold with up to 207,500 absentee ballots yet to be counted. Voters’ full rankings of the candidates have yet to be taken into account and it could be July before a winner emerges.

Adams, a former police captain who co-founded a leadership group for Black officers, was ahead of former city sanitation commissioner, Kathryn Garcia, and former de Blasio administration lawyer, Maya Wiley.

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Speaking to jubilant supporters, Adams acknowledged that he had not won yet, and that under the ranked choice system there were multiple rounds of ballot counting still to go.

“We know that there’s going to be twos and threes and fours,” he said. “But there’s something else we know. We know that New York City said: ‘Our first choice is Eric Adams.’”

Andrew Yang, a former presidential candidate who was far behind in early returns, conceded about two hours after polls closed and vowed to work with the next mayor.

In the Republican primary, Guardian Angels founder, Curtis Sliwa, defeated businessman, Fernando Mateo. Ranked choice voting was not a factor because there were only two candidates in the race.

Several candidates in the race to succeed Bill de Blasio have the potential to make history if elected. The city could get its first female mayor, or its second Black mayor, depending on who comes out on top.

But in the Democratic contest, the initial picture could be misleading. After polls closed at 9pm, New York city’s board of elections began releasing results of votes cast in person, but the returns focused on who voters ranked as their first choice.

Besides Adams, Garcia, Wiley and Yang, other contenders in the Democratic contest included city comptroller Scott Stringer former US housing secretary Shaun Donovan, former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire and nonprofit executive Dianne Morales.

De Blasio, a Democrat, leaves office at the end of the year due to term limits.

Related: New York City’s tumultuous mayor’s race closes as voters struggle to choose

About 800,000 people are expected to vote in the Democratic primary, according to the New York Times, which would be an increase from the last competitive mayoral primary in 2013. Given the leftward political leanings of the city, the winner of the primary will almost certainly win the election proper in November.

After polls closed at 9pm, New York City’s board of eelections planned to release partial results of votes cast in person, but that initial picture could be misleading because it will only include data on who candidates ranked as their first choice.

The ranked choice system, approved for use in New York City primaries and special elections by referendum in 2019, allowed voters to rank up to five candidates on their ballot.

Among a slow trickle of voters in Queens on Tuesday was Min Kwon, 26, who voted for Wiley, a civil rights lawyer who has emerged as the leading progressive candidate in recent weeks.

“Her stance on the police department, defunding it significantly, is one thing I really like about her,” Kwon said, adding that he supported Wiley’s positions on LGBTQ+ rights, housing rights and racial justice.

Morales, a progressive former non-profit leader and fellow police critic, whose campaign has been derailed by infighting, was his second choice.

An election season that began with calls for at least partially defunding the New York’s police department has pivoted in recent weeks, as a spike in shootings swung the debate in the opposite direction and helped to propel Adams, a centrist who has criticized the “defund the police” movement, and supports the widely loathed stop-and-frisk policing tactic, to the top of the polls.

People stand in privacy booths as they fill ballots at PS 250 during the New York City primary mayoral election in Brooklyn.
People stand in privacy booths as they fill ballots at PS 250 during the New York City primary mayoral election in Brooklyn. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Wiley has avoided using the term “defund the police”, but would cut at least $1bn from the NYPD’s budget – which was $5.8bn last year, its highest ever – and shift the money to social programs and mental health workers.

Most candidates have pitched policies to attempt to curb police brutality, although they differ on how that would be achieved.

“I don’t think the police force here in New York has to be as big as it is right now. Especially for the homeless situation, mental illness, or other things like that, there are other resources that we can divert police funds to to help that,” Kwon said.

Kwon said when choosing his candidate he asked himself: “When do I actually feel safe when police are nearby? And I don’t feel safe when police are nearby, especially as a person of color.”

Cali Howitt, 39, voted for Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner for New York who has risen in the polls after being endorsed by the New York Times and the New York Daily News.

“I like her experience,” Howitt said.

“I feel like we need someone who is experienced even though we need a change from what we currently have, I want somebody in there that has experience in the government and knows how it runs, and isn’t coming out of nowhere basically.”

Howitt selected Sean Donovan, a secretary of housing and urban development in the Obama administration, as her second choice – “for essentially the same reasons”, she said – and was pleased with the introduction of ranked choice voting.

“I really like it because your vote counts even when your first person has been knocked out of the race,” she said.

New York City mayoral candidate Maya Wiley greeting voters outside of a polling site.
New York City mayoral candidate Maya Wiley greeting voters outside of a polling site. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

Andrew Yang, a tech entrepreneur and 2020 long-shot candidate for president, led the polls for weeks before Adams emerged as the top contender in May. The final polling suggest Adams has opened up a gap on his rivals, with Wiley, Garcia and Yang running close behind.

On Tuesday night, the winner of the early voting and on-the-day ballots should be revealed, before mail-in vote counting, and then second-choice and potentially third, fourth and fifth-choice voting, continues.

By 12 July, after months of electioneering, and weeks after primary day, New York City residents should finally know the identity of their next mayor.

The Associated Press contributed reporting