Elections

Scott M. Stringer, addressing supporters at a results-watching party on the Upper West Side shortly after polls closed, appeared to acknowledge on Tuesday that his longstanding dream of becoming mayor had come up short, without explicitly conceding that the race was over.Citing his long career in government and politics, Mr. Stringer, the city comptroller, gave what amounted to a valedictory to a campaign that he began as a leading contender, only to fade after two women leveled decades-old accusations of sexual harassment against him.“This was a very tough election for me and my family,” said Mr. Stringer, with his wife, Elyse Buxbaum, at his side “but it was a very inspirational one as well.”He pledged to support “the next mayor,” and he also made it clear he was not finished with public service.“I want to tell all of you that I’m not going anywhere,” he said to cheers and applause.Earlier, before Mr. Stringer spoke, his supporters had remained optimistic that a late surge would push him to victory.“I see the numbers. I see the statistics, and they don’t seem to favor him,” said Hamid Kherief of Manhattan, who was taking a smoking break outside The Ribbon, the restaurant where the watch party was held. “But I think we do rely on the last push.”Mr. Kherief, 65, of the Algerian-American Association in New York, said he liked Mr. Stringer for his deep ties to city government and “the establishment.” He acknowledged that Mr. Stringer’s campaign had been hurt by the sexual harassment accusations, which the candidate denied. More

Curtis Sliwa won the Republican primary in the New York mayor’s race on Tuesday, setting up a long-shot challenge in November to the Democratic Party’s eventual nominee.With a significant portion of votes counted, Mr. Sliwa was beating Fernando Mateo by over 40 percentage points, according to The Associated Press.His victory capped a bitter campaign pitting onetime friends and first-time candidates against each other to become the standard-bearer of a party whose political power in New York has waned significantly since it vaulted consecutive mayors, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Michael R. Bloomberg, to City Hall for a total of five terms.With public attention on crime and safety increasing amid the city’s efforts to move past the coronavirus pandemic, both Republican candidates this year sought to claim the law-and-order mantle. But Mr. Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, a group of self-appointed crime fighters, may have been especially well positioned to capitalize on the circumstances.Juan Pagan, who was in the crowd at Mr. Sliwa’s primary night party at the Empire Steak House in Midtown Manhattan, said the candidate’s background had given him a clear edge in the race.“He’s a hard-core New Yorker,” said Mr. Pagan, a 65-year-old retiree from the Lower East Side, speaking in room festooned with red and white balloons scraping the ceiling beneath a sparkling chandelier. “It’s in his veins, it’s in his blood.”Ayton Eller, wearing a “Refund the Police” T-shirt and a “Trump 2020” yarmulke, echoed that sentiment.“He knows New York inside and out, he’s been to all the diverse neighborhoods, Harlem, the Bronx,” said Mr. Eller, 41, an accountant who lives in Brooklyn’s Flatlands neighborhood.Mr. Giuliani, who endorsed Mr. Sliwa, was also in attendance. He said that Democrats discounted the Republican at their peril.“People underestimate Curtis,” Mr. Giuliani said.A radio host and longtime fixture in the New York media landscape who joined the Republican Party only last year, Mr. Sliwa first gained prominence in the 1980s for his creation of the crime-fighting group, whose members roamed the subway and streets in red berets, offering a sense of safety to some New Yorkers who felt especially jittery at a time when crime was far more rampant in the city than it is now.The group earned its share of headlines, but Mr. Sliwa, a former McDonald’s night manager, later acknowledged that some of them were based on events that had been faked for the publicity.Fernando MateoAndrew Seng for The New York TimesMr. Mateo, a restaurateur with ties to New York’s taxi industry, was born in the Dominican Republic and is a longtime Republican fund-raiser. He gained his own measure of notoriety when it emerged that he had acted as a middleman in fund-raising efforts by Mayor Bill de Blasio that attracted scrutiny from investigators.Republican leaders were divided over which candidate was the best option to vie for leadership of a city where Democrats hold an edge of more than six to one in registered voters. The Manhattan, Queens and Bronx Republican Parties endorsed Mr. Mateo; Mr. Sliwa had the backing of the Staten Island and Brooklyn parties.The Republican nominating contest on Tuesday came as the party has grown increasingly irrelevant in the nation’s large cities, aligning itself firmly with rural, conservative voters since Donald J. Trump’s ascent.Nate Schweber contributed reporting. More

The attorney general said that various inspector general inquiries would help uncover any wrongdoing and that he wanted to avoid politicizing the work of career officials.WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick B. Garland backed away on Tuesday from doing a broad review of Justice Department politicization during the Trump administration, noting that the department’s independent inspector general was already investigating related issues, including aggressive leak hunts and attempts to overturn the election.Democrats and some former Justice Department employees have pressed Mr. Garland to uncover any efforts by former President Donald J. Trump to wield the power of federal law enforcement to advance his personal agenda. Their calls for a full investigation grew louder after recent revelations that Mr. Trump pushed department officials to help him undo his election loss and that prosecutors took aggressive steps to root out leakers.Answering questions from reporters at the Justice Department on Tuesday, Mr. Garland said that reviewing the previous administration’s actions was “a complicated question.” He noted that managers typically sought to understand what previous leaders had done.“We always look at what happened before,” he said. But he stopped short of saying that he would undertake a comprehensive review of Trump era Justice Department officials and their actions, in part to keep career employees from concluding that their work would be judged through changing political views.“I don’t want the department’s career people to think that a new group comes in and immediately applies a political lens,” Mr. Garland said.He also invoked the investigations by the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, noting that they spoke to the question of whether Mr. Trump had improperly used the department’s powers to investigate and prosecute.“It’s his job to look at these things,” Mr. Garland said of Mr. Horowitz. “He’s very good at this — let us know when there are problems and what changes should be made, if they should be. I don’t want to prejudge anything. It’s just not fair to the current employees.”Mr. Horowitz said this month that he was investigating decisions by federal prosecutors to secretly seize reporters’ phone records in investigations of leaks of classified information to the press early in the Trump administration.Mr. Horowitz is also examining subpoenas to Apple for subscriber information that ultimately belonged to House Democrats, including Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Mr. Schiff had called on Mr. Garland last week to do a “top-to-bottom review of the degree to which the department was politicized during the previous administration and take corrective steps.”The inspector general is also examining whether current or former Justice Department officials improperly attempted to use the department to undo the election results, following reports that at least one former official pushed leaders to do so. And he is looking into whether Trump administration officials improperly pressured the former U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Byung J. Pak, to resign over his decision not to take actions that would cast doubt on the results of the election.Mr. Garland also said in a statement this month that the deputy attorney general, Lisa O. Monaco, was looking for “potentially problematic matters deserving high-level review.” But he made clear that she was not undertaking the kind of full investigation that critics of the Trump administration have called for.Mr. Garland also told reporters that he planned to issue a memo on the federal death penalty in the coming weeks, which the Trump administration had revived after nearly two decades of disuse. President Biden has said he opposes the federal death penalty.“I have been personally reviewing the processes of the department,” Mr. Garland said. “I expect before too long to have a statement.” More

All 50 G.O.P. senators opposed the sweeping elections overhaul, leaving a long-shot bid to eliminate the filibuster as Democrats’ best remaining hope to enact legal changes.WASHINGTON — Republicans on Tuesday blocked the most ambitious voting rights legislation to come before Congress in a generation, dealing a blow to Democrats’ attempts to counter a wave of state-level ballot restrictions and supercharging a campaign to end the legislative filibuster.President Biden and Democratic leaders said the defeat was only the beginning of their drive to steer federal voting rights legislation into law, and vowed to redouble their efforts in the weeks ahead.“In the fight for voting rights, this vote was the starting gun, not the finish line,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader. “We will not let it go. We will not let it die. This voter suppression cannot stand.”But the Republican blockade in the Senate left Democrats without a clear path forward, and without a means to beat back the restrictive voting laws racing through Republican-led states. For now, it will largely be left to the Justice Department to decide whether to challenge any of the state laws in court — a time-consuming process with limited chances of success — and to a coalition of outside groups to help voters navigate the shifting rules.Democrats’ best remaining hope to enact legal changes rests on a long-shot bid to eliminate the legislative filibuster, which Republicans used on Tuesday to block the measure, called the For the People Act. Seething progressive activists pointed to the Republicans’ refusal to even allow debate on the issue as a glaring example of why Democrats in the Senate must move to eliminate the rule and bypass the G.O.P. on a range of liberal priorities while they still control Congress and the presidency.They argued that with former President Donald J. Trump continuing to press the false claim that the election was stolen from him — a narrative that many Republicans have perpetuated as they have pushed for new voting restrictions — Democrats in Congress could not afford to allow the voting bill to languish.Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, denounced any attempt to gut the filibuster.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times“The people did not give Democrats the House, Senate and White House to compromise with insurrectionists,” Representative Ayanna Pressley, Democrat of Massachusetts, wrote on Twitter. “Abolish the filibuster so we can do the people’s work.”Liberal activists promised a well-funded summertime blitz, replete with home-state rallies and million-dollar ad campaigns, to try to ramp up pressure on a handful of Senate Democrats opposed to changing the rules. Mounting frustration with Republicans could accelerate a growing rift between liberals and more moderate lawmakers over whether to try to pass a bipartisan infrastructure and jobs package or move unilaterally on a far more ambitious plan.But key Democratic moderates who have defended the filibuster rule — led by Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — appeared unmoved and said their leaders should try to find narrower compromises, including on voting and infrastructure bills.Ms. Sinema dug in against eliminating the filibuster on the eve of the vote, writing an op-ed in The Washington Post defending the 60-vote threshold. Without the rule there to force broad consensus, she argued, Congress could swing wildly every two years between enacting and then reversing liberal and conservative agenda items.“The filibuster is needed to protect democracy, I can tell you that,” Mr. Manchin told reporters on Tuesday.In their defeat, top Democrats appeared keen to at least claim Republicans’ unwillingness to take up the bill as a political issue. They planned to use it in the weeks and months ahead to stoke enthusiasm with their progressive base by highlighting congressional Republicans’ refusal to act to preserve voting rights at a time when their colleagues around the country are racing to clamp down on ballot access.Vice President Kamala Harris spent the afternoon on Capitol Hill trying to drum up support for the bill and craft some areas of bipartisan compromise.Erin Schaff/The New York Times“Once again, Senate Republicans have signed their names in the ledger of history alongside Donald Trump, the big lie and voter suppression — to their enduring disgrace,” Mr. Schumer said. “This vote, I’m ashamed to say, is further evidence that voter suppression has become part of the official platform of the Republican Party.”Democrats’ bill, which passed the House in March, would have ushered in the largest federally mandated expansion of voting rights since the 1960s, ended the practice of partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, forced super PACs to disclose their big donors and created a new public campaign financing system.It would have pushed back against more than a dozen Republican-led states that have enacted laws that experts say will make it harder for people of color and young people to vote, or shift power over elections to G.O.P. legislators. Other states appear poised to follow suit, including Texas, whose Republican governor on Tuesday called a special legislative session in July, when lawmakers are expected to complete work on a voting bill Democrats temporarily blocked last month.After months of partisan wrangling over the role of the federal government in elections, the outcome on Tuesday was hardly a surprise to either party. All 50 Senate Democrats voted to advance the federal legislation and open debate on other competing voting bills. All 50 Republicans united to deny it the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster, deriding it as a bloated federal overreach.Republicans never seriously considered the legislation, or a narrower alternative proposed in recent days by Mr. Manchin. They mounted an aggressive campaign in congressional committees, on television and finally on the floor to portray the bill as a self-serving federalization of elections to benefit Democrats. They called Democrats’ warnings about democracy hyperbolic. And they defended their state counterparts, including arguments that the laws were needed to address nonexistent “election integrity” issues Mr. Trump raised about the 2020 election.“The filibuster is needed to protect democracy, I can tell you that,” Senator Joe Manchin III said.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesSenate Republicans particularly savaged provisions restructuring the Federal Election Commission to avoid deadlocks and the proposed creation of a public campaign financing system for congressional campaigns.“These same rotten proposals have sometimes been called a massive overhaul for a broken democracy, sometimes just a modest package of tweaks for a democracy that’s working perfectly and sometimes a response to state actions, which this bill actually predates by many years,” said Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader. “But whatever label Democrats slap on the bill, the substance remains the same.”His top deputy, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, also threw cold water on any suggestion the two parties could come together on a narrower voting bill as long as Democrats wanted Congress to overpower the states.“I don’t think there’s anything I’ve seen yet that doesn’t fundamentally change the way states conduct elections,” he said. “It’s sort of a line in the sand for most of our members.”At more than 800 pages, the For the People Act was remarkably broad. It was first assembled in 2019 as a compendium of long-sought liberal election changes and campaign pledges that had energized Democrats’ anti-corruption campaign platform in the 2018 midterm elections. At the time, Democrats did not control the Senate or the White House, and so the bill served more as a statement of values than a viable piece of legislation..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}When Democrats improbably won control of them, proponents insisted that what had essentially been a messaging bill become a top legislative priority. But the approach was always flawed. Mr. Manchin did not support the legislation, and other Democrats privately expressed concerns over key provisions. State election administrators from both parties said some of its mandates were simply unworkable (Democrats proposed tweaks to alleviate their concerns). Republicans felt little pressure to back a bill of its size and partisan origins.Senator Amy Klobuchar, right, announced that she would use her gavel on the Rules Committee to hold a series of hearings on election issues.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesDemocratic leaders won Mr. Manchin’s vote on Tuesday by agreeing to consider a narrower compromise proposal he drafted in case the debate had proceeded. Mr. Manchin’s alternative would have expanded early and mail-in voting, made Election Day a federal holiday, and imposed new campaign and government ethics rules. But it cut out proposals slammed by Republicans, including one that would have neutered state voter identification laws popular with voters and another to set up a public campaign financing system.Mr. Manchin was not the only Democrat keen on Tuesday to project a sense of optimism and purpose, even as the party’s options dwindled. Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, announced she would use her gavel on the Rules Committee to hold a series of hearings on election issues, including a field hearing in Georgia to highlight the state’s restrictive new voting law.Vice President Kamala Harris, who asked to take the lead on voting issues for Mr. Biden, spent the afternoon on Capitol Hill trying to drum up support for the bill and craft some areas of bipartisan compromise. She later presided over the vote.“The fight is not over,” she told reporters afterward.Facing criticism from party activists who accused him of taking too passive a role on the issue, Mr. Biden said he would have more to say on the issue next week but vowed to fight on against the dawning of a “Jim Crow era in the 21st century.”“I’ve been engaged in this work my whole career, and we are going to be ramping up our efforts to overcome again — for the people, for our very democracy,” he said in a statement.But privately, top Democrats in Congress conceded they had few compelling options and dwindling time to act — particularly if they cannot persuade all 50 of their members to scrap the filibuster rule. The Senate will leave later this week for a two-week break. When senators return, Democratic leaders, including Mr. Biden, are eager to quickly shift to consideration of an infrastructure and jobs package that could easily consume the rest of the summer.They have also been advised by Democratic elections lawyers that unless a voting overhaul is signed into law by Labor Day, it stands little chance of taking effect before the 2022 midterm elections.Both the House and the Senate are still expected to vote this fall on another marquee voting bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The bill would put teeth back into a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that made it harder for jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to enact voting restrictions, which was invalidated by the Supreme Court in 2013. While it does have some modest Republican support, it too appears to be likely doomed by the filibuster.“This place can always make you despondent,” said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut. “The whole exercise of being a member of this body is convincing yourself to get up another day to convince yourself that the fight is worth engaging in. But yeah, this certainly feels like an existential fight.”Jonathan Weisman More

New York City voters used ranked-choice voting for the first time in a mayoral race on Tuesday, and many of them took it in stride.Laura Benedek, 75, has not missed an election since she cast her first vote — for Lyndon B. Johnson as president. Seated in her wheelchair on Tuesday, outside her polling place on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, she flaunted her “I Voted” sticker. More

.s-carousel{margin:0;padding:0;max-width:600px;margin:auto}.s-carousel__slides{position:relative;padding-top:min(600px,100%);background:#000}.s-carousel img,.s-carousel video{margin:0;padding:0;width:100%;height:100%;object-fit:contain}.s-carousel figure{margin:0;padding:0;position:relative}.s-carousel__credit{z-index:10;position:absolute;bottom:15px;left:15px;text-align:left;font-family:nyt-franklin,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-weight:500;font-size:.75rem;color:#fff;opacity:.6}.s-carousel figcaption{z-index:10;top:15px;left:15px;width:75%;letter-spacing:.01em;position:absolute;text-align:left;font-family:nyt-franklin,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-weight:700;text-shadow:0 0 10px rgba(0,0,0,.25),1px 1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,.35),-1px -1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,.35);font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#fff}.s-carousel li,.s-carousel ol{list-style:none;margin:0;padding:0}.s-carousel__viewport{width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;bottom:0;display:flex;overflow-x:scroll;overflow-y:hidden;scroll-behavior:smooth;scroll-snap-type:x mandatory}@media (prefers-reduced-motion){.s-carousel__viewport{scroll-behavior:auto}}.s-carousel__viewport{-ms-overflow-style:none;scrollbar-width:none;scrollbar-color:transparent transparent;-webkit-user-select:none;user-select:none}.s-carousel__viewport::-webkit-scrollbar{width:0;display:none}.s-carousel__viewport::-webkit-scrollbar-track{background:0 0}.s-carousel__viewport::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb{background:0 0;border:none}.s-carousel figure:focus,.s-carousel image:focus,.s-carousel video:focus{outline:0;box-shadow:none}.s-carousel__slide{width:100%;height:100%;position:relative;flex:0 0 100%;scroll-snap-align:start}.s-carousel__slide figure{width:100%;height:100%;display:flex;align-items:center}.s-carousel__tap-to-unmute-overlay{height:100%;width:100%;position:absolute;z-index:100;animation:fade-in .5s ease-out forwards;background-color:transparent;border:none}.s-carousel__tap-to-unmute-icon{pointer-events:none;background-color:#00000099;padding:10px;border-radius:50%;position:absolute;top:15px;right:15px}.s-carousel__tap-to-unmute-icon svg{display:block;fill:#fff;width:20px;height:20px}.s-carousel__tap-to-unmute-icon svg path{stroke:#fff}.s-carousel__kebob{display:flex;justify-content:center;margin-top:15px}.s-carousel__bob{display:inline-block;width:6px;height:6px;background:#121212;opacity:.3;background-clip:content-box;border:3px solid transparent;border-radius:50%;font-size:0;transition:transform .4s}.s-carousel__bob[data-active=true]{opacity:.8}.s-carousel__navigation{margin-top:15px;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center}.s-carousel__arrows{width:50px;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center}@media (hover:none){.s-carousel__arrows{visibility:hidden}}.s-carousel__arrow{all:unset;cursor:pointer}.s-carousel__arrow svg{pointer-events:none;fill:#333;transition:fill .15s}.s-carousel__arrow:hover svg{fill:#ccc}.s-carousel__closed-captions-container{position:absolute;z-index:11;bottom:35px;margin:0 auto;left:0;right:0;text-align:center}.s-carousel__closed-captions{font-size:1rem;color:#fff;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,.9);padding:5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;visibility:hidden}@media (max-width:600px){.s-carousel figcaption{width:75%;letter-spacing:.01em}.s-carousel__closed-captions{font-size:.8125rem}}Maya Wiley in HarlemHilary Swift for The New York TimesAndrew Yang on the Upper West SideGabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesEric Adams in Crown HeightsJames Estrin/The New York TimesKathryn Garcia in Co-Op CityMichelle V. Agins/The New York TimesScott Stringer on the Upper East SideAndrew Seng for The New York Timesslide 1slide 2slide 3slide 4slide 5 As far as the eye could see, New York City was covered with Democratic candidates for mayor on Tuesday. Maya Wiley rode on the back of a scooter through Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Andrew Yang interrupted a brunch on the Upper West Side. Eric Adams, by turns triumphant and tearful, basked in the sound of supporters chanting his name after he voted in Bedford-Stuyvesant.From the Bronx to Staten Island, voters also turned out, heading to the polls to choose the Democrat who will almost certainly become the next mayor of the nation’s biggest city as it charts a still-tentative course toward recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.The fractious primary, with more than a dozen candidates, has been filled with unknowns and is in some ways unprecedented. It is New York’s first citywide experience with ranked-choice voting, in which voters can choose up to five candidates in many of the races on this year’s ballot. Under the system, the candidate with the most first-place votes after the initial count might not be the ultimate winner, and the final results may not be known for weeks. The devastation wrought by the pandemic, which claimed the lives of more than 30,000 city residents and wiped out over a million jobs, has raised the importance of the race, even as the scope of the losses sometimes made it hard for candidates to get the electorate’s attention.Voters casting their ballots at a community center in Bushwick, Brooklyn.Sarah Blesener for The New York TimesOn Tuesday, at least, they had it.“You have to win,” a voter in the Bronx told Kathryn Garcia. “I’m working on it,” she replied. Cindy Schreibman, a Manhattan voter who said she had ranked Mr. Adams first and Ms. Garcia second, spelled out the stakes.“This city’s on the precipice — it could go down, it could go up, it could stay the same,” Ms. Schreibman, 64, said. “What I’m very, very passionate about is as a lifelong New Yorker, making sure that this city is safe, clean, and fair.”The race remained fluid. Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and a retired police captain whose emphasis on public safety during a spring marked by a spike in gun violence seemed to gain traction, has led narrowly in recent polls. But Mr. Yang, the exuberant former presidential candidate; Ms. Wiley, a former City Hall counsel and MSNBC legal analyst; and Ms. Garcia, a no-nonsense former sanitation commissioner, all have a shot. A city that boasts of its diversity seems likely to have its first Asian, first female or second Black mayor.New Yorkers were also voting in primaries for Manhattan district attorney, one of the most influential elected law-enforcement posts in the nation; comptroller and public advocate, two citywide offices that often function as government watchdogs; and City Council and borough president. Registered Democrats make up two thirds of the city’s 5.6 million voters, and with no broadly popular Republican candidate, the victor in the Democratic mayoral primary is all but certain to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio, a two-term Democrat being forced to leave office by term limits.Turnout seemed relatively light early in the day, with some polling places nearly empty and few snaking lines. That, too, might have had something to do with another new wrinkle: early voting for the first time in a mayoral primary. Almost 200,000 voters cast ballots in person before Tuesday. Another 220,000 requested absentee ballots. An alliance between Mr. Yang and Ms. Garcia in the campaign’s closing days — he urged his supporters to rank her No. 2 on their ballots, and the two campaigned side by side — provided some last-minute drama. Mr. Adams and some of his allies suggested that the two had teamed up to prevent a Black or Latino candidate from becoming mayor (Mr. Adams is Black; Ms. Garcia, despite her surname, is white). Several of Mr. Adams’s opponents denounced the criticism as unfounded and cynical.On Tuesday, a calm seemed to have settled over the race. “We need to turn the page from the politics of attack and division,” Mr. Yang said at a morning appearance in the Bronx. Mr. Adams, likewise, dismissed what he called efforts “to create a crisis on the day of the election” at a campaign stop in Midtown Manhattan.Katie Glueck, Alexandra E. Petri and Sean Piccoli contributed reporting. More