By: Ilana Siyance
The outcome of the New York City mayoral election can vary greatly based on who shows up to vote.
The all-important Democratic Primary has a wide variety of predicted outcomes, based on a wide range of estimated voter turnout. Even the rain forecasted for Tuesday, can make a big impact on the election result, if it deters voters from coming out.
As reported by the NY Post, each of the Democratic candidates feel they can be the winner, if the right voters turn up. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang’s campaign has said it could be victorious, if new voters make their way to the ballots, pushing up votes cast to 1.1 million. Such an outcome would entail a huge leap over the 692,000 people who voted in the 2013 Democratic primary. Candidate Dianne Morales’ guesses only half that number will turn out.
“None of them know. It’s literally darts at a board. Nobody knows how many people are going to turn,” political analyst and pollster George Fontas said. Following the pandemic, and with the introduction of the new ranked-choice voting system, anything can happen.
It’s the first time in nearly half a century that the Big Apple has had a mayoral primary in June. Further, a mass amount of money has been poured into pushing people out to the polls. Between the eight candidates plus independent groups there has already been a total of $96 million poured into the Democratic mayoral primary, as per filings.
While Yang would need a rush of new voters to win, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams would be the likely victor if there is a low turnout. Adams has a loyal following with unions and middle class voters. “His base in Brooklyn is quite reliable,” said a city politician tracking early voting.
Adams and another frontrunner, civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley, are expecting between 800,000 and 900,000 voters to turn out. “A 100,000-person range from 800,000 to 900,000 is more than 10 percent that they don’t know, which is an enormous number in a race this close,” Fontas said.
“My estimation– which is based on previous turnout, efforts that I’m aware of related to independent expenditures and other efforts, and based on how many City Council races and other down ballot races which theoretically should help push turnout a little bit– I would actually put the number in the 800,000 to 850,000 range. I would actually say 828,376 voters,” Fontas told The Post.
