It would have once been unthinkable: two leading candidates for mayor, Brad Lander and Zohran Mamdani, holding a joint news conference and making a joint campaign video barely a week out from Election Day.

“Zohran, you’ve done a remarkable job building a historic, grassroots campaign,” Lander said in the video released last week announcing their cross-endorsement. “Brad, you’ve been a principled, progressive leader in our city for years,” Mamdani replied.

What You Need To Know

  • This year’s primary is the second time ranked-choice voting is being used in citywide races

  • Two leading candidates for mayor, Brad Lander and Zohran Mamdani, recently cross-endorsed in an effort to topple Andrew Cuomo

  • Voters can rank as many as five candidates in order of preference

Ranked-choice voting, it seems, has scrambled the logic of campaigns both for candidates and for voters, who can now rank as many as five candidates in order of preference.

“If you’re somebody who just wants to vote for one, just vote for one. You want to vote for three? Vote for three. You want to vote for all five? That’s your choice as well,” Vincent Ignizio, deputy executive director of the city's Board of Elections, said.

If a candidate tops 50% on election night, ranked-choice voting does not apply. If no candidate wins a majority, the ranked-choice tabulation comes into play.

First, the last-place finisher is eliminated. Their votes are then transferred to whichever candidate is ranked second on each ballot. The process repeats until there’s a winner.

“Ultimately, as candidates drop out, those votes get redistributed until we get to over 50%,” Ignizio said.

In 2021, the city’s first experience with ranked-choice voting, Eric Adams came out ahead by 11 points on election night. But through the ranked-choice process, Kathryn Garcia gained enough votes to come within less than a percentage point of an upset.

This year, Lander and Mamdani are betting that if all their voters rank the other candidate second, one of them will ultimately accumulate enough votes to overcome frontrunner Andrew Cuomo.

“I believe it will help me to win. He believes it will help him to win. And we both believe it will help us together to stop Andrew Cuomo,” Lander said at their joint news conference last Friday.

One important note: the Board of Elections won’t run the ranked-choice computation until July 1, meaning the winner of the mayoral primary likely won’t be clear until a week after Election Day.

As for voting, officials recommend you do it as soon as possible.

“What we’re encouraging people to do is vote early. It’s going to be a very hot election day, over 100 degrees in New York," Ignizio said. "So have a voting plan. Come out and let your voice be heard."