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      Primary Day in N.Y.C.: Where the Races Stand

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      [Want to get New York Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.]It’s Wednesday. Weather: Sunny and dry, with a high in the mid-70s. Alternate-side parking: In effect until July 4 (Independence Day). Desiree Rios for The New York TimesEven as gloomy weather descended on New York, hundreds of thousands of voters cast their ballots on Primary Day.The election offered the first major test of a new voting system and capped off months of campaigning in several city races. But winners will not immediately be called in many major contests, including the Democratic primary for mayor and the city comptroller race, with no single candidate getting more than 50 percent of the vote and ranked-choice selections yet to be processed.Here’s a look at where the races stand (and you can follow all the results here):Eric Adams is ahead. But results are far from final.In initial tallies after Tuesday’s voting, Mr. Adams was in front among the Democratic candidates for mayor with nearly 32 percent of first-choice votes. He was trailed by Maya Wiley, with about 22 percent, and Kathryn Garcia, with more than 19 percent.The three remained firmly optimistic on Tuesday night. But Andrew Yang, who was in fourth place at less than 12 percent, conceded. “We still believe we can help, but not as mayor and first lady,” he said with his wife, Evelyn, at his side.As ranked-choice votes are tabulated, those standings could change, and absentee ballots also must be counted. It may be weeks before an official winner is named.The eventual victor will face off in the Nov. 2 general election against Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, who handily won the Republican primary over Fernando Mateo.[Read about the major takeaways from Primary Day, and check out neighborhood-level results.]Alvin Bragg leads the Democratic race for Manhattan district attorney.Mr. Bragg, a former federal prosecutor and deputy attorney general, was ahead in the Democratic primary for Manhattan district attorney, leading Tali Farhadian Weinstein by about three and a half percentage points. His platform was focused on police accountability and racial justice.If his lead holds, Mr. Bragg would become the first Black person to lead the office. If Ms. Farhadian Weinstein pulled ahead, she would become the first woman.The Manhattan district attorney’s race, which did not use the ranked-choice system, included eight candidates total.[Looking for more information on the race? Here’s our full story.]Other races were headed to ranked-choice tabulation.In the contest for comptroller, a position that will play a significant role in the city’s economic recovery, Brad Lander, who was endorsed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was ahead in first-choice votes. He was leading Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, by about nine percentage points.The winners of many City Council races were also still undeclared. Several incumbents coasted to easy victories, but in most districts the current officeholder was not running, guaranteeing at least 32 different faces.From The TimesUnanimous Vote Is Final Step Toward Removing Roosevelt StatueConnecticut Legalizes Recreational Marijuana, With Sales Set for May 2022With Mass Vaccination Sites Winding Down, It’s All About the ‘Ground Game’Morgan Stanley says no vaccine, no entry.Sylvia Deutsch, a Force in New York City Land Use, Dies at 96Want more news? Check out our full coverage.The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.What we’re readingSeveral mayoral candidates showed support for renaming streets named for slaveholders. What would the effort take to accomplish? [Curbed]Lagging vaccination rates among workers at group homes for disabled New Yorkers are sparking concerns. [Gothamist]At the Newkirk Plaza subway station in Brooklyn, residents say, officials have not addressed a growing rat infestation problem. [The City]And finally: Who got Special Tony Awards?The Times’s Julia Jacobs writes:The Tony Awards, long delayed by the pandemic, announced on Tuesday the first recipients, including the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, an organization started five years ago by a group of actors and others as a tool to work toward dismantling racism through theater and storytelling.The other recipients were “David Byrne’s American Utopia,” an intricately choreographed concert by the former Talking Heads singer, and “Freestyle Love Supreme,” a mostly improvised hip-hop musical that was created, in part, by Lin-Manuel Miranda.These honors, called Special Tony Awards, were presented to three recipients that the Tony administration committee thought deserving of recognition even though they did not fall into any of the competition categories, according to a news release.The recipients were announced more than one year after the ceremony had originally been scheduled to take place. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the ceremony was put on hold.The awards show — a starry broadcast that will celebrate Broadway’s comeback — is now scheduled to air on CBS in September, when Broadway shows are scheduled to return to theaters in almost full force. Most of the awards, however, will be given out just beforehand, during a ceremony that will be shown only on Paramount+, the ViacomCBS subscription streaming service.It’s Wednesday — show your appreciation.Metropolitan Diary: Familiar sightDear Diary:I was on an uptown No. 1 train. Across the aisle was a young man who looked to be in his early 20s. He had long, thick, curly red hair. There was a guitar case on the floor next to him.We looked at each other and smiled. I got off at the next stop.Around two months later, I got on another uptown 1. I sat down, looked up and saw the young red-haired man with his guitar case across the aisle and two seats away.We looked at each other. His eyes widened in surprise and his face broke into a grin.I’m sure I looked surprised, too, and I grinned, too.In two stops, he got off the train. We were both smiling.— Deametrice EysterNew York Today is published weekdays around 6 a.m. Sign up here to get it by email. You can also find it at nytoday.com. More

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      Primary Day in New York: Rain, Short Lines and a New Kind of Ballot

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      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

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      Primary Day Is Finally Here

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      [Want to get New York Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.]It’s Tuesday. Weather: Watch out for showers and thunderstorms most of the day. The temperature will fall from the mid-70s in the morning to the mid-60s by evening. More

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      New Yorkers Vote for Mayor in Race Tinged With Acrimony and Uncertainty

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      Voters on Tuesday will participate in the city’s first mayoral election using ranked-choice voting, a system that may delay the declaration of a winner until mid-July.When the New York City mayoral primary campaign began, the city was steeped in grave uncertainty about its future. Candidates laid out radically different visions for how they would guide a still-shuttered metropolis out of overlapping crises around public health, the economy and racial injustice. More

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      Here’s How New Yorkers Feel About Ranked-Choice Voting

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      New Yorkers are using a new voting system citywide for the first time, but in interviews, many seemed characteristically unfazed: “It’s real easy if people just learn how to read.”A New York City mayoral race that began over Zoom during the height of the pandemic came down to street campaigning in its final hours on Monday, with as many as half a million voters preparing to cast ballots when polls open on Tuesday. More

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      Whether Maya Wiley or Kathryn Garcia, a Woman Mayor Could Save N.Y.C.

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      Last week I wrote about why I thought Eric Adams is very marginally preferable to Andrew Yang in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary. Yang is likable, and I can see why people have gravitated to his sunny vision of a vibrant, business-friendly city. But electing a totally inexperienced mayor buoyed by hedge fund billionaires and singularly focused on public order seems potentially calamitous. Not because public order isn’t important — everyone wants a safe city — but because it has to be balanced with a commitment to justice. More

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      Joe Biden Is as Puzzled by the Senate as You Are

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      Gail Collins: Bret, it’s been a while between conversations and although I’ve been on vacation I have noticed a lot of … stuff. Particularly the frozen Senate. Tell me, who’s your hero? Action-stopping Joe Manchin? Perpetually plotting Mitch McConnell? Let’s-all-get-along Mitt Romney?Bret Stephens: Welcome back from holiday, Gail. Years ago I won a minor journalism award on the strength of my mockery of Mitt Romney’s presidential bid. But how can you not love a Republican who voted to convict Donald Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors not once, but twice?Gail: Yeah, I’ve certainly gotten over that dog on the roof of his car.Bret: That said, my hero of the hour is the gentleman from West Virginia. Everybody hates the filibuster until they find themselves in the minority, and Manchin is doing his fellow Democrats a favor, which they can thank him for when they lose the majority. I really don’t understand how some liberals attack the filibuster as some kind of emblem of white supremacy when both Barack Obama and Joe Biden were defending its sanctity during a period of Republican control of the Senate. Come to think of it, as Democratic senators past and present go, I think I like Manchin almost as much as I like the other Joe — Lieberman, that is.But how about you? Who is your senator of the hour?Gail: Oh gosh, I’m fascinated by the Lieberman-Manchin coupling. I think you’re the first one who’s suggested to me it might be a … welcome development. We’ve divided on the Lieberman issue before. I’ve blamed him for everything from Al Gore’s loss of the presidency to the flaws in Obamacare, but I won’t torture you on that front today.Bret: Shouldn’t you blame, um, Ralph Nader, or Antonin Scalia, or those earth-tone suits for Gore’s loss? Sorry, go on.Gail: There are two reasons Manchin keeps holding up the Biden agenda. One is that he’s from a very Republican state and has to keep reminding his voters he isn’t like those other Democrats. Perfectly understandable, but not exactly heroic.Bret: Well, you can have a conservative Democrat from West Virginia who votes with his party roughly 62 percent of the time. Or you can have a Trumpist Republican who votes with her party 100 percent of the time. I think liberals should give their red state Democrats a little more respect lest they be tempted to defect like Colorado’s Ben Campbell, Alabama’s Richard Shelby and Texas’ Phil Gramm.Gail: Manchin also just seems like he thinks it’s cool to be the one guy who can stop every bill in its tracks. But in this kind of situation, being the big “no” vote isn’t heroic, it’s posturing.As to my senator of the hour, don’t know if I have a good nominee, but I am very, very tempted to drive you crazy and say Chuck Schumer.Bret: Ideological differences aside, I genuinely like the senator and his wonderful wife Iris. So I’ll refrain from suggesting that the Senate majority leader would ever stoop to any political posturing of his own. What is it that you’re liking about him so much lately?Gail: These days, Senate majority leader isn’t exactly a pleasant gig. Rounding up the votes to get anything done in a 50-50 chamber is godawful. But Schumer’s been doing pretty well at holding things together. You can tell he really gets a kick out of having the job.And admit it, he’s more likable than Mitch McConnell.Bret: Gail, that’s like setting the bar at the bottom of the Dead Sea.Gail: Meanwhile, there’s that movement by conservative Catholic bishops to deny Biden the right to take communion because he supports abortion rights.I’m pretty confident where you’ll come down on this one, but let me hear your thoughts.Bret: Well, as a friend of mine pointed out to me the other day, if the bishops are going to deny Joe Biden communion for his pro-choice views, shouldn’t they also deny communion to pro-death penalty conservatives? Last I checked, the Vatican wasn’t too keen on lethal injections, either. This seems pretty, um, selective in its opprobrium.But, hey, as a member of the original Abrahamic faith, what do I know about all this Catholic stuff? I’m more interested in your view of the subject.Gail: When I went through Catholic schools, we were taught abortion was murder, period. I stopped believing that a very long time ago, but I do understand people who have personal moral reservations.Bret: Fair enough, but I’ve always had strong reservations about the “abortion is murder” school of thinking.If it’s murder, then the tens of millions of American women who have had abortions over the decades are, at a minimum, accomplices to murder, if not murderers themselves. If that’s the reasoning, then the logic of the argument leads you to conclude that they ought to be in prison. Alternatively, if abortion is murder but the women who get abortions don’t deserve to be treated as criminals, then you are devaluing the moral gravity of the act of murder. Either way, the position strikes me as intellectually indefensible.Sorry. I’m ranting. Go on.Gail: I could appreciate where the anti-abortion forces are coming from — except that they’re often the ones who do so little to provide services that help poor women avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place. Or provide job protection for new parents. Or day care for their infants.Bret: I think this is yet another good argument for keeping religion out of politics as much as possible. I’m not a fan of many aspects of the welfare state, but I don’t understand conservative politicians who invoke their Christianity — the original version of which is basically socialism plus God — only to take less-than-Christian positions.Gail: Joe Biden is the guy who’s crusading to expand services that would make it easier for struggling young women to keep their babies and raise them happily. But he’s supposed to be the conservative bishops’ villain. Sort of ironic, huh?Bret: Ironic, too, that he’s only the second Catholic president in American history, after Jack Kennedy, and probably the most religious Democrat in the White House since Jimmy Carter. And he’s the guy the church wants to censure?Gail: One last thing before we sign off: Tuesday’s our big Primary Day in New York City. And the debut of our new preferential voting system. It’s the same thing Maine did in the 2020 presidential election.Bret: No idea why it didn’t occur to someone that what happens in Maine should stay in Maine. Like Moxie soda.Gail: So I went to vote early, having painfully prepared to choose five — five! — mayoral contenders in order of preference.Bret: I realize it’s a secret ballot, though I’d love to know who you picked last.Gail: Then I proudly moved on to the next section and discovered I was supposed to pick just as many people for comptroller. Have to admit this one threw me. Really, do you think even the most avid student of local government can tell you who the third-best comptroller contender is?Bret: I barely even know what a comptroller is, if I’m being honest. But I’ve gotta assume the third-best one must be Scott Stringer, since that’s the job he currently has.Gail: Not really sure this preferential voting system is my, um, preference. Any thoughts?Bret: Being the knee-jerk conservative that I am, my instinct is to oppose it on the “just-cuz” principle. Other countries that tinker with their voting procedures never seem to meaningfully change the quality of governance, even if it can shift the dynamics of a race. But, as you pointed out, ranked-choice voting does confuse a lot of voters who sensibly decide that they don’t have to become experts on secondary electoral races in order to make a political choice.On the other hand, advocates of the system argue that it tends to work in favor of more moderate, consensus-choice candidates, while cutting down on negative campaigning, which America could surely use these days. I also read somewhere that the Australians have been using the ranked-choice system for a century or so, and the universe Down Under didn’t come to a screeching halt. So I’m happy to be persuaded either way on the issue.Gail: We’ll see. But preferential voting certainly isn’t on my top five things to worry about. So many more worthy candidates.Bret: One last thing, Gail. If you haven’t already, read our colleague Nicholas Casey’s moving and elegant magazine essay about his father. I hope our readers do, too. It’s a reminder that all of us, at some level, spend a part of our lives searching for our dads — and, sometimes, even finding them.Gail: Amen.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More