Tag Archives: New York City

Tuesday’s NYC Elections Results Expected to be Available Next Month

By Jim Ellis

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams

June 24, 2021 — Voters in New York City reached one of the election cycle’s benchmarks Tuesday, the actual primary election day; but we are still weeks away from seeing a formal declaration of who won the races.

NYC has been notoriously slow in counting ballots in a system that is encumbered with an extra post-election period to receive absentee ballots on top of a pre-election day early voting phase. Last year, for example, it literally took six weeks to determine that Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) had been re-nominated in the 2020 Democratic primary.

This year, the city adopted the ranked-choice voting method, which even in the fastest counting jurisdictions has added days if not more than a week to determine a winner. Therefore, we will see another long, but this time better-planned, counting period.

In this 2021 election, the city clerk has published a schedule that will allow absentee ballots to be received through June 29, which also will be the release of the first round of ranked-choice results. Those figures will only be a partial count, however, because no absentee ballots will be added until after the reception deadline. More ranked-choice totals will be released on July 6, which the city official says will include “some” absentee ballots. Further, and likely final, releases will then come the week of July 12 that will include “more complete” absentee ballot counts.

All in all, the counting of the election ballots continues to be a lengthy and laborious task.

The ranked-choice system takes effect because no candidate received majority support. Now, the last-place finisher, candidate Isaac Wright, is eliminated. Officials will locate the ballots that ranked him first, and then add those voters’ second choices to the full count. If no one still reaches majority support, the next candidate with the lowest number of votes, in this case Joycelyn Taylor, will then have her 1st choice ballots located and those voters’ second choice added to the overall count. This process continues until a candidate exceeds 50 percent.

Turning to what has been reported for last night’s tabulations, as predicted, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has the lead as he has so far captured 32 percent of the counted votes. Civil rights attorney and activist Maya Wiley, with support from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx) and the party’s far left faction, placed second with 22 percent, just ahead of former NYC Sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia who pulled 19 percent.

Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who led early in many polls, is effectively eliminated as he placed fourth with just under 12 percent of the total vote, or almost 20 full percentage points behind Adams. Since it is unlikely that the ranked-choice process would catapult him back into serious contention, Yang conceded his fate in media interviews.

In the early counting, Adams has healthy leads in four of the city’s five boroughs. He is running strongest in the Bronx, where he leads Wiley and Garcia, 45-17-10 percent. He has an eight-point lead over Wiley in his home borough of Brooklyn, tops Wiley 33-19 percent in Queens, and holds a 31-20 percent advantage over Garcia in Staten Island. The only borough where Adams trails is Manhattan, where Garcia places first with 32 percent and Adams only slots into third with 19 percent, three percentage points behind Wiley.

Adams’ lead is such that he is likely to win the Democratic primary once the weeks pass and the final count becomes known. The Adams nomination victory will foretell him winning the mayor’s office in November, as New York’s 7:1 Democrat to Republican ratio leaves little doubt as to the general election outcome.

Two other New York mayors did not fare as well as Adams in their respective Buffalo and Rochester primaries. These cities did not employ the ranked-choice system, so their results are much clearer today.

Four-term Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown appears to have lost his bid to win re-nomination for a fifth four-year term with still about 50 precincts outstanding. He will likely fall to self-proclaimed socialist India Walton. At-large Rochester City Councilman Malik Evans scored a landslide nomination victory over Mayor Lovely Warren by a virtual 2:1 margin.

In addition to the NYC mayor’s race, all 51 city council districts were also on the ballot, and each must now go through the ranked-choice counting process. To see the New York City official election results in this era of lightning quick technology, we must turn the clock all the way ahead to the week of July 12.

NYC and Ranked Choice on Ballot

NYC Democracy produced a voter palm card to help guide voters in a ranked-choice voting scenario.

By Jim Ellis

June 22, 2021 — New York City Democrats go to the polls today to cast their ballots in the party’s mayoral primary as 13 candidates compete to succeed term-limited Mayor Bill de Blasio (D). With voter registration figures giving Democrats an almost 7:1 advantage, there is little doubt that the eventual Democratic primary winner will win the mayoral general election on Nov. 2.

More, however, is on the ballot than just deciding which of the candidates will advance into the Autumn election. The Democrats are using a ranked choice voting system that has been tried in other places around the county, such as the state of Maine and 32 mostly local jurisdictions. With 13 candidates vying for the mayoral nomination, however, and at least four being within the margin of error in the most recent polling, this New York City race could be the system’s most significant test.

Ranked Choice Voting is an electoral procedure where voters rank the candidates in their order of preference. In this case, Democratic voters will record their first preference with the number 1, and then follow through individually with the remaining dozen.

The system works as follows: when the ballots are fully counted, assuming no one receives an outright majority, which is a virtual certainty with so many candidates in contention, the 13th-place finisher will be eliminated from further competition. Election officials will then locate all ballots where the last place finisher was chosen first. Those voters’ second choices are then recorded and added to the original count. This process continues until a top candidate reaches the 50 percent plateau.

Considering that New York City election officials took six weeks to determine a winner in Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s (D-Manhattan) 12th District congressional Democratic primary last year, for example, this complicated counting process could go on for some time before a winner is ultimately announced.

Pollsters attempted to gauge the voters’ ranked choice predilections in rather complicated questioning, and most estimated that the counting process would consume 10-12 rounds. Polling accuracy is unclear at this point because few research firms have attempted to measure the ranked choice system. Therefore, today’s race could have a wild card ending especially when voters go deep into their ratings.

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Democrat Debate Friction


By Jim Ellis

June 10, 2019 — The Politico publication ran a story late last week detailing building friction between the Democratic National Committee and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a late-entering Democratic presidential candidate, over the committee leaders apparently axing the western governor from the first debate forum coming later this month.

The source of controversy is the party leadership contending that Gov. Bullock, who looked to have qualified for the debate under the outlined criteria, now has not. Instead, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is in position to capture the 20th and final debate podium for the upcoming June 26-27 candidate forums from Miami.

As we have previously reported, the qualifications the party leaders have placed upon the candidates require them to either build a fundraising organization of 65,000 donors, with a minimum of 200 coming from 20 states, or score one percent support in at least three surveys from eight designated pollsters.

Gov. Bullock appeared to have met the polling requirement. He exceeded the one percent threshold in the ABC/Washington Post survey in January. But, the DNC is now disallowing this particular poll, and the action probably eliminates him from the debate.

Their reasoning is that the ABC/Post poll asked an open-ended presidential ballot test question — that is, where the names of the candidates are not read, but the respondents must voluntarily state a name. This type of question is usually employed to test hard name identification and candidate strength.

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Bloomberg & Other Surprises

By Jim Ellis

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (D)

March 8, 2019 — Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision earlier this week not to enter the Democratic presidential race becomes the first major surprise move of the early campaign.

It was clearly expected that he would become a candidate. After all, he was talking about committing $500 million of his own money to the effort, he’d hired key campaign staff, designed a presidential campaign logo, and even organized an announcement tour beginning in his birthplace of Boston, Massachusetts.

Speculation continues to surround former Vice President Joe Biden’s decision regarding whether or not he may also ultimately decide to take a pass on the race; Bloomberg’s reasoning provides us a key clue that at least he thinks Biden will soon form a campaign.

So far, 11 Democrats have become candidates with two more filing exploratory committees. The pair remaining in pre-candidate status are Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI).

It is conceivable that one or both of the latter women could decide not to become candidates. Rep. Gabbard has run into organizational trouble, is being attacked for her foreign policy positions, and now has drawn serious primary opposition for her congressional seat. Just recently, state Sen. Kai Kahele (D-Hilo) has earned public endorsements from former governors and key Hawaii Democratic Party leaders.

While many in the media cast Sen. Gillibrand as a top-tier candidate, she has gone nowhere since her exploratory announcement, failing so far to even break one percent in any released poll.

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Election 2016: Urban vs. Rural

By Jim Ellis

Jan. 26, 2017 — Now that the election returns are official and divided into congressional district and county totals, we can now see exactly how the presidential election unfolded.

It became clear from early Election Night totals that Donald Trump won the national vote because of his performance in the outer suburbs and rural areas in the 30 states that he carried over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. His margins there, largely because of turnout, were enough to compensate for Clinton’s larger-than-expected advantages in the major cities and inner suburbs.

In looking at the country’s largest metropolitan statistical areas, we find that Clinton scored an average 59.9 percent of the vote, when averaging her percentage performance in the nation’s 10 most populous urban regions. This compares to President Trump’s 35.8 percent. Keep in mind that the national popular vote percentage total was 48.1 – 46.0 percent.

In the rural areas surrounding these specific urban centers, the numbers dramatically changed. Counterbalancing the Clinton margins in the metroplexes, Trump’s lead in the outer suburban and rural regions in the states he carried was roughly equivalent to the former secretary of state’s urban advantage but with greater turnout. In the corresponding Trump state rural regions, the new president averaged 56.8 percent as compared to Clinton’s 39.7 percent.

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Election 2016:
How the Electoral College Won

By Jim Ellis

Jan. 25, 2016 — Over the past few decades we have witnessed a great debate in American politics involving the Founding Fathers’ implementation of the Electoral College to govern the presidential election. The just-completed 2016 contest provided many definitive answers to questions surrounding whether the system has outlived its usefulness, or is even needed.

Understanding that the Electoral College was created largely to protect the lesser populated states, rural issues and concerns, and prevent the large population areas from dominating the outcome at all others’ expense, 2016 proved all of those tenets are still salient in the modern political era.

Looking at the presidential election results divided into congressional districts and counties, we can begin to pinpoint the ebbs and flows of the Trump and Clinton vote characterizations and begin to understand how this election truly unfolded. We knew from Election Night that the 2016 electorate was badly polarized in terms of the metropolitan areas versus outer suburb and rural regions, but now we have the tools to see just how deep a divide actually exists. Such appears to be cavernous.

Breaking down the top 10 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) relating to population, we generally see an overwhelming support trend in Hillary Clinton’s favor, which makes the increased turnout and overpowering Trump advantage in the outer suburban and rural areas all the more stunning.

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A Hillary Comeback?

By Jim Ellis

Jan. 19, 2017 — On the eve of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, we again hear talk about a potential political campaign involving the woman he defeated in November, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

There has been conjecture during the past couple of weeks from Democrats and Republicans both in and out of New York City that Clinton may make a political comeback in the upcoming New York City mayoral election to be held later this year. The rumors are fueled because Clinton is not denying interest, instead she simply is not saying anything about the subject.

Why would she challenge incumbent Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), who supported her, especially when he commands relatively strong support among Democrats, the city’s dominant political party?

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Gillespie vs. Northam: New Polling

By Jim Ellis

Jan. 17, 2017 — It’s hard to believe, but already we are not particularly far from a series of new election campaigns taking center stage. In addition to the five special congressional elections, the significant regular 2017 contests include the governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia, along with the New York City mayor’s race.

At the end of last week, New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno (R) filed paperwork to run for governor, as expected, but is rather strangely refusing to confirm that she will actually become a candidate. Rumors are swirling that Hillary Clinton is considering challenging Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, but little realistic chance exists that such a race will materialize.

Late this week, polling surfaced in the Virginia governor’s race, a contest that may well become the flagship campaign on the 2017 political calendar. A group called Conservatives for Clean Energy contracted with reliable Republican pollster Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies (POS) to survey the candidates vying for the Commonwealth’s top position.

Though the poll was conducted in December (Dec. 11-13; 500 likely Virginia voters), the results are similar to those found in a corresponding Quinnipiac University survey (Dec. 6-11; 1,098 registered Virginia voters). Normally, such outdated studies would provide us very little usable data, but with the Christmas holidays occupying a great deal of the time between the polling and release dates, the data has remained salient because little has changed politically in the intervening time period.

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Next Steps for the 2016 Presidential Election: Delegates & Timing

A year from now, we will be fast approaching the initial Iowa Caucus vote, but much remains to be decided before the first voters cast their ballots in the 2016 presidential contest. Most of the uncompleted tasks involve delegate allocation and scheduling.

Today, it appears the Democrats will have 4,508 voting delegates at their national convention, which will likely occur either during the week of July 25th or Aug. 22nd. The Democratic National Committee has narrowed their convention site to three possibilities: New York City, Philadelphia and Columbus, OH. Republicans look to be gearing up for their convention during the week of July 18th, and they have already decided upon Cleveland as their gathering site. The total GOP delegate universe will be a much smaller 2,409.

Each party’s nomination rules will go a long way toward determining the respective presidential contenders, particularly on the Republican side. Though the Democratic delegate allocation formula (by state) is very complex, their voting process is simpler. Thirty-seven states will employ a proportional allocation structure based upon primary votes cast, while 18 more will meet in a caucus/state convention system. One state, Texas, will use a combined caucus and proportional primary program, and one final entity, Michigan, will assign all of its delegates to the winning primary candidate in a Winner-Take-All format.
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Election Night Analysis

Election Night 2013 may have turned out somewhat differently than political polling projected in terms of margin, but the actual voting yielded few surprise winners.

New Jersey

In New Jersey, as expected, Gov. Chris Christie (R) romped to a second term, defeating state Sen. Barbara Buono (D) 60-38 percent. The only question would be whether the governor could bring new Republican state legislators with him, but the legislative chambers remained virtually intact. The initial unofficial count shows the GOP gaining one state Senate seat and two Assembly positions, but strong Democratic majorities remain in both bodies.

Virginia

In Virginia, though polls were suggesting a Terry McAuliffe win of greater than five points over Ken Cuccinelli – the final Washington Post poll projected a 12-point gap, for example – the actual Democratic margin of victory was only three points,  Continue reading >