NEW YORK — Assembly member Zohran Mamdani was holding onto a lead in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City with more than 80% of the vote counted on Tuesday. Hundreds of thousands of votes cast on election day had yet to be tallied.

Mamdani, an upstart Assembly member and democratic socialist, built an early lead over Andrew Cuomo, the state’s scandal-plagued former governor, and held onto it as counting continued. Under the city’s ranked-choice voting system, a winner may not be clear until next week.

Whoever prevails will become the front-runner in the general election to lead a city at an inflection point. New York is confronting a cost-of-living crisis and President Donald Trump’s increasingly aggressive tactics to impose his agenda on immigration and transportation, issues that dominated the race.

The fall campaign could be unusually competitive. Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, skipped the primary to seek a second term as an independent. Curtis Sliwa, the 2021 Republican nominee, secured his party’s nomination without a primary, and Jim Walden, a lawyer, is running as an independent. But neither Cuomo nor Mamdani has ruled out a fall campaign either if they lose Tuesday.

— Waiting for results: Because New Yorkers will be voting under a ranked-choice system, the final result will not be determined Tuesday night unless one candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes. If not, voters’ backup choices are scheduled to be tabulated on July 1.

— Numbers to watch: Campaign strategists agree it may be possible to get a sense Tuesday night of where the final results are headed. If any candidate secures more than 40% of the vote on the first ballot, it will be difficult for their rivals to catch them.

— Final days: The contest was especially fierce in its final days. Cuomo, 67, who has campaigned far less than his opponents, has relied on labor unions and a record-setting super political action committee burying voters in anti-Mamdani ads to push him across the finish line. Mamdani, 33, who has amassed tens of thousands of mostly young volunteers, traversed the city and linked arms with fellow progressive candidates like Brad Lander, the city comptroller, in an eleventh-hour bid to stop Cuomo’s return.

— Who’s running for mayor: The wide field of Democratic candidates included Cuomo; Mamdani; Lander; Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker; Scott Stringer, a former comptroller; state Sen. Zellnor Myrie; former Assembly member Michael Blake; and financier Whitney Tilson, among others.

— What else is on the ballot: New York Democrats also voted in a competitive primary to replace Lander as comptroller, a contested primary for public advocate and a smattering of key City Council races. Republicans do not have a mayoral primary this year but will select a nominee for comptroller.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Nicholas Fandos/Hilary Swift
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