Raymond J. McGuire, the former Citigroup executive who mounted a long-shot and apparently unsuccessful Democratic bid for mayor, won 18,503 first-place primary votes. Early indications suggest he and his supporters paid dearly for each of them.
Based on preliminary totals, Mr. McGuire’s votes cost his campaign and a so-called super PAC that supported him $910 apiece on average. The figure will probably fall as absentee votes are counted, but it is unclear by how much.
Should all 207,500 of the absentee ballots that were sent to Democratic voters be returned, and should Mr. McGuire’s share of first-place votes on those ballots be the same as it was for those cast in person — 2.31 percent — the price-per-vote would drop to $723.
Even without the super PAC spending, the preliminary data shows that Mr. McGuire’s votes still cost $568 apiece.
A spokeswoman for Mr. McGuire’s campaign had no immediate comment.
“I wouldn’t have changed anything that we did,” said Kimberly Peeler-Allen, who helped run the super PAC. “There were a lot of factors at play in this race and the majority of them we had no control over.”
Mr. McGuire was not the only Democratic candidate whose robust spending yielded meager returns, according to the early data.
Shaun Donovan, a former Obama administration housing secretary and budget director, claimed 17,303 first-place votes. His campaign and a super PAC that was financed mostly by his father combined to spend $630 per vote, the data shows.
Even absent the super PAC, Mr. Donovan’s campaign still spent $236 a vote. (As with Mr. McGuire’s, the per-vote figures for Mr. Donovan are expected to change as absentee ballots are counted.)
Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, also had the benefit of spending by a super PAC in addition to his campaign. Combined, the data shows, they spent $313 apiece for the 40,244 first-place votes he won.
Not all of the candidates fared as poorly, on a price-per-vote basis.
Supporters of Andrew Yang, who contributed to his campaign and to two super PACs that backed him, ended up spending about $130 apiece on his 93,291 first-place votes, according to the preliminary totals.
Supporters of Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and the race’s leader after first-choice votes were counted, spent about $62 apiece on his 253,234 first-place votes.
Supporters of Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, spent $45 on each of her 177,722 votes, through her campaign and two super PACs. Ms. Wiley placed second in first-choice votes.
Kathryn Garcia, Mr. de Blasio’s former sanitation commissioner, was in third place after first-choice votes were counted. Her supporters spent $34 apiece, via her campaign and a super PAC, on the 155,812 votes that went to her.
Dianne Morales, the major candidate in the field who ran furthest to the left and the only one without super PAC support, won more votes than either Mr. McGuire or Mr. Donovan and spent significantly less money: $55 on each of the 22,221 first-place votes she got.
The votes of about 800,000 Democrats who voted in person had been tallied by Wednesday, but the count was not yet complete. New Yorkers requested a total of about 220,000 absentee ballots; as of Tuesday, more than 90,763 had been completed and returned.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
