How progressives engineered voting rules to help Zohran Mamdani win

New York Post ^ | Nov. 9, 2025, 10:37 a.m. ET | John Fund

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Explanations for Zohran Mandani’s victory emphasize his cost-of-living focus, his savvy use of social media, Andrew Cuomo’s shortcomings and the city’s growing number of South Asians and alienated young people.

But there’s a key additional factor. Mamdani’s allies in the Democratic Socialists of America, Working Families Party and left-wing foundations worked for years to change city election laws that gave his candidacy a powerful boost.

Foremost is ranked-choice voting (RCV), which voters approved in 2019 after a campaign in which there was almost no organized opposition but proponents, such as billionaire George Soros’ son Jonathan Soros, spent over $2 million.

Curiously, ranked choice only applied to party primaries and not general elections. This year, that anomaly allowed Mamdani to win his primary with only 44% of first-choice votes.

In the general election he won just 50.4%, and a Suffolk University poll last week found he was the second choice of only 3% of voters not backing him or Cuomo.

Josh Kraushaar, the editor of Jewish Insider, concluded: “If New York City utilized a ranked-choice voting system as it did in the primary, this race would be neck-and-neck.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has praised ranked-choice voting for allowing progressive candidates to cross-endorse each other. 

In this year’s primary, she carefully explained to supporters how they should rank the candidates. 

Deb Otis, director of research for the pro-RCV group FairVote, says without it “progressive candidates would have been sniping at each other the whole time.”  

In 2021, the first election where New York used RCV, two Democratic mayoral candidates split the progressive vote, allowing the more moderate Eric Adams to win with 50.4% in the eighth round of voting.

But that same year ranked-choice voting helped progressives dominate the two other citywide races (comptroller and public advocate) and win many City Council seats.

“The incoming mayor...

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TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:

[grobdriver]

One person gets one vote, and the candidate who gets the most votes wins the election.

Anything else is a gimmick.

[pas]

By those numbers he would have won both with or without rank voting.

[lee martell]

Both major parties greatly underestimated the determination of today’s Progressives, who could smell ‘success’ light years away, and kept working toward that one goal.
They were untied on that one mission.
Every other cause remains a scrambled mess of power plays.

More moderate Dems got figuratively Car Jacked by the Commies. “Gimme those keys, NOW!!”
The Dems now ride in the locked trunk, far away from the driver’s seat.

[DFG]

New York adjusting quickly to Mamdani’s election. LaGuardia Airport is now offering direct flights into the Empire State Building.