Ranked Choice Voting In NYC is Succeeding Exactly as Intended
Even If Cuomo Wins, it along with campaign finance reform has created a City he won't be able to dominate like he did Albany
On Tuesday, New York City Democrats will choose their nominee for mayor—and for the first time, ranked choice voting may shape the outcome in a way that changes how power is contested in America's biggest city. The final result may still be a familiar one: Andrew Cuomo, the former governor with deep-pocketed billionaire allies, might eke out a win. But the process is already a quiet revolution.
Let’s be clear from the outset: ranked choice voting (RCV) doesn’t guarantee progressive victories. It’s not a magic wand that sweeps aside establishment candidates, nor does it protect against big-money campaigns. But what it does do—what it’s doing right now in NYC—is structurally changing how progressive candidates run, how they collaborate, and how voters can express real preference without playing a zero-sum game.
And that’s a major win for democracy.
Ranked Choice Voting Works the Way It Should
Here’s how it works: instead of picking just one candidate, voters rank up to five. If your top choice is eliminated, your vote transfers to your next preferred candidate, and so on, until someone wins a majority. This prevents “vote-splitting” and frees voters from having to guess which candidate is most “viable.”
In the old system, backing your favorite progressive could have meant accidentally helping someone like Cuomo win. Now, if your favorite doesn’t make it, your vote still goes to your next best choice—someone who likely shares many of your values.
That means all progressive votes can eventually consolidate against someone like Cuomo, even if they don’t all start in the same place. It also means progressives no longer have to undercut one another to emerge as the “last one standing.” And this year, they didn’t.
As the organization FairVote explains in more depth, RCV gives more power to voters, reduces negative campaigning, and leads to more diverse and representative outcomes. It lets coalitions form without sabotage.
A Progressive Slate—Not a Circular Firing Squad
This dynamic led to something remarkable: a united progressive front, coordinated by the Working Families Party (WFP), where candidates endorsed one another and actively avoided infighting.
Instead of tearing each other down to compete for the same base, leading progressives like Zohran Mamdani, Comptroller Brad Lander, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Zelnor Myrie signed up to mutually endorse each other, and shared a common message: Don’t Rank Cuomo.
That kind of unity simply wouldn’t have happened under the old system. There would’ve been brutal jostling for attention, oppo dumps, and attempts to knock each other off the ballot. Instead, the tone shifted toward cooperation—and it paid off in powerful ways.
The Brad Lander Moment: A Case Study in Progressive Solidarity
The impact of this shift came into sharp relief when Comptroller Brad Lander, a leading progressive voice in city government, was arrested by ICE agents while accompanying an immigrant client to their hearing. The shocking incident could have become a political wedge or been quietly ignored.
Instead, his progressive rivals immediately showed up in solidarity. Candidates who might once have stayed silent for fear of building the stature of a rival, instead rushed to his defense. "ICE has no interest in law, no interest in order. It only has an interest in terrorizing people across this country," Mamdani said. Another candidate Scott Stringer said, Lander '“didn't just talk the talk today. He walked the walk, and I want to praise him for that, and we should all give him a round of applause.”
That moment didn’t just show moral clarity. It showed how RCV has reshaped the incentive structure. Supporting one another is now strategic. Voters notice. And they reward candidates who uplift a broader movement.
Cuomo’s Billionaire Backers—and the Limits of Reform
Of course, solidarity alone doesn’t win elections. Cuomo is still a formidable opponent—flush with outside cash, backed by corporate PACs, and buoyed by name recognition.
A single pro-Cuomo PAC was responsible for nearly half of all outside spending in the primary election across NYC, according to reporting from City & State. From Trump-aligned billionaires to app-based corporations like DoorDash seeking to crush pro-worker legislation, Cuomo’s donor base reads like a Who’s Who of anti-labor capitalism.
This wave of corporate spending arrives at a time when more voters than ever before are demanding fair wages, tenant protections, and climate justice. Cuomo’s campaign represents the last gasp of a corporate establishment machine increasingly out of step with the city it seeks to govern.
NYC’s Public Financing Law: A Progressive Gamechanger
Yet Cuomo is escalating his fundraising because he had lost ground in the last few months. NYC has a model campaign finance law which is the reason a candidate like socialist Zohran Mamdani is even competitive with a billionaire-funded ex-Governor.
That program, arguably one of the most progressive in the country, means grassroots candidates can raise competitive war chests without billionaire support. Mamdani received donations from more than 18,000 individuals—and with matching funds,matching each donation $8 dollars for every small donor dollar raised, his campaign amassed $8 million to reach voters in every borough and avoid having his message drowned out.
Without public financing and ranked voting, it’s hard to imagine a campaign like Mamdani’s even getting off the ground—let alone threatening a former governor.
The City Council: A Progressive Firewall
Even if Cuomo wins—and it remains a real possibility—he will face a City Council that itself has been shaped by the same dynamics of ranked voting and public financing - and will act as a progressive check on him in a way the legislature rarely did when he was Governor in Albany.
Adrienne Adams, the current Speaker, was supported by that progressive majority on the Council and is running for mayor on the WFP-endorsed slate. She has spoken out directly against Cuomo’s candidacy. As local analysts have noted, “during her speakership, sources say, the council was pushed left — approving some of the most progressive initiatives in years.”
Under Adrienne Adams, lawmakers have overridden six of the current mayor's vetoes and sued the administration three times, showing the Council will act as a check on Cuomo in a way the state legislature never did when he was Governor in Albany. Notably, the state legislature NEVER overrode any Cuomo veto in the multiple terms he was Governor, but he will face a far less passive Council shaped by ranked voting and campaign finance reforms that will make it more willing to stand up to his corporate-backed initiatives.
A Long Game Worth Playing
None of this is perfect. NYC still faces deep challenges—from housing to policing to a corporate class eager to claw back its influence. Ranked choice voting isn’t a panacea, nor is public financing a cure-all. But taken together, these reforms have tilted the playing field in real, measurable ways.
They’ve allowed progressives to collaborate instead of cannibalize, mobilize small donors instead of chasing big ones, and build enduring power that survives beyond one election.
Even if Cuomo emerges with a win on Tuesday, progressives will have built up power throughout the City supporting each other, not tearing each other down. Because it’s not just about one race. It’s about the movement that made it close—and the democratic reforms that made that movement possible.
In a city where money once decided everything, voters now have more voice, more choice, and more power than ever before.
NOTE: Whatever the outcome of Tuesday’s election, there is a high probability that Cuomo and Mandami will face off in the general election in the fall. Cuomo has already stated he will run on a third party he has already established if he loses on Tuesday and Mandami will likely run as a candidate of the Working Families Party if he loses. The twist is ranked voting doesn’t apply in the general election and with a GOP candidate, current mayor Andrew Adams running as an independent, and Cuomo running, conservative voters will be the ones faced with strategic dilemmas of whether splintering their votes over three candidates may allow Mandami to win the election with a plurality of the vote. Hopefully, that problem will encourage bringing ranked voting to general elections in the future.