Could Ranked-Choice Voting Make a Socialist New York City’s Mayor?

A new poll out this week shows what many have long suspected: The New York mayor’s race is closer than it seems. The survey shows former New York governor Andrew Cuomo leading the pack with 40 percent of the vote, but Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist, is not far away at 27 percent.

Just a week earlier, another poll, which had a much larger sample size, put Cuomo 32 points ahead. But a tightening race isn’t the only alarm bell in the survey for the man many expected to glide to victory in this election. The other is what happens when New York’s convoluted ranked-choice voting system is factored in.

Allow me to explain.