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    What to Watch for When the N.Y.C. Mayoral Results Come in

    A winner on Tuesday night is unlikely, but not impossible. Ranked-choice voting will play a big role in the outcome. Here’s what else you should look for as votes are counted.We are unlikely to know the winner of the Democratic primary race for mayor on primary night.Polls show a close contest between two candidates, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. In the ranked-choice election, voters can select up to five candidates in order of preference, and if neither man gets more than 50 percent of the first-place votes on Tuesday, a series of subsequent rounds will tally the final results based on voters’ second-through-fifth-place choices.But that count will not take place until July 1, a week after the election, because absentee, mail-in and affidavit votes, which can be important in a close race, can be received and counted up until then.Polls close in New York at 9 p.m., and first results will start to come shortly after that.Here’s what else you’ll need to know ahead of Primary Day:The math of ranked-choice votingThis is New York’s second mayoral primary election using the ranked-choice voting system. Vote counting proceeds in rounds, with the last-place candidate eliminated in each round. If a voter’s top choice is eliminated, the vote is then transferred to the voter’s next choice. Elimination rounds continue until there are two candidates left and one gets more than 50 percent of the vote.Most reliable polls suggest that neither Mr. Mamdani nor Mr. Cuomo will receive more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round of vote counting on Tuesday night. But their performances will offer a look at who has the upper hand: The closer a candidate is to 50 percent, the better chance that candidate has to win in the end.The first results to come in on Tuesday night, from a period of early voting that began more than a week ago, are likely to favor Mr. Mamdani. That’s because a jump in the number of early voters this year appears to be driven by younger voters, who tend to prefer Mr. Mamdani.Bill Knapp, a strategist and consultant for Fix the City, the pro-Cuomo super PAC that has raised roughly $25 million from billionaire donors and corporate interests, acknowledged that the first votes counted would probably not favor Mr. Cuomo.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Cuomo and Mamdani Push to Raise Turnout in ‘Jump Ball’ Mayor’s Race

    A new poll shows the New York City mayor’s race tightening in its final days. Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani are scrambling for every last vote.In the final hours before Primary Day, the Democratic race for mayor of New York City appeared to be razor-tight, leaving the two leading candidates — Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani — in scramble mode to boost turnout on Tuesday.A new poll released on Monday by Emerson College suggested the race was too close to call, with Mr. Cuomo drawing the most first-place votes but falling short of the 50 percent threshold required to be declared the winner under the city’s relatively new ranked-choice voting system.The poll shows Mr. Mamdani pulling ahead in the eighth round, topping Mr. Cuomo by 3.6 percentage points — matching the poll’s margin of error. It is the first major survey that shows Mr. Mamdani winning, seemingly reflecting his momentum, especially among younger voters.“It is essential that we turn out in record numbers in order to turn the page on Andrew Cuomo, his billionaire donors, and the politics of big money and small ideas,” Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman and democratic socialist, said on Monday.Mr. Cuomo, the former governor who resigned in 2021 following a series of sexual harassment allegations that he denies, has led in polls for months, including one also released on Monday by Fix the City, a super PAC tied to Mr. Cuomo’s interests. His campaign called the Emerson poll an “outlier.”“We will continue to fight for every vote like he will fight for every New Yorker as mayor,” Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More