Portside

So much ink (literal and virtual) has been spilled on the electrifying upset in the NYC mayoral primary race. Zohran Mamdani wins and Andrew Cuomo, the former disgraced NY governor, had to concede on election night. Every media outlet has weighed in from NY Times, to every substack, and every celebrity who supported Mamdani. 

This is not an analysis of Zohran’s mighty win but just a few observations from a New York City resident and more precisely someone living in Central Harlem.

As a volunteer member of the NY Working Families Party (NY WFP) I fully supported the brilliantly executed strategy of “Rank the Slate”. Ana Maria Archila and Jasmine Gripper, the co-directors of the NY WFP, analyzed the failing of the progressives in the 2021 NYC mayoral race that allowed NYC mayor Eric Adams to win by just over 7,000 votes. Given that Ranked-Choice Voting would be used again during this Democratic primary, they presented a program to build a true coalition of progressives who would support each other with the ultimate goal of denying Andrew Cuomo the win in the primary. And it worked.

Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV), for those not familiar, is a system used during the primaries in NY State to allow a primary voter to choose up to five candidates on their ballot in descending rankings. If a candidate receives 50% plus 1 of the 1st-choice votes, they are the winner. If no candidate earns more than 50% of the 1st-choice votes, then counting continues in rounds. At the end of each round, the candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated. This process will continue until there are only two candidates left and the candidate with the most votes wins. (Zohran Mamdani on election night had over 43% of the first choice votes, the final tally will be announced by the NYC Board of Elections on Tuesday July 1st and Zohran’s final numbers will be higher.)

The beauty of RCV is that more diverse candidates win elections. Cities that have implemented ranked choice voting have elected more women and more people of color, making their elected officials more representative of their communities.

Earlier in the year, NY WFP leadership held mass calls with members and supporters to talk about the strategy and pulling together progressives who would unite around a strategy that supported the full slate – a slate where any of the candidates who were endorsed by the NY WFP would be fighters for working people of NYC and most importantly a slate that would not split the vote of our base.

Many mayoral candidates came forward asking for the endorsement of NY WFP. Our process included an all day meeting at the Make the Road headquarters in Queens. While each of us had our own favorites, each candidate had a sit down with NY WFP leadership – where candidates had to agree to support the other NY WFP endorsed candidates in a spirit of unity. If they did not agree to this principle then we would not include them on the NY WFP Slate.

At the end of the endorsement process the NY WFP ended up with four great candidates who agreed to be presented as a slate – a slate with no rankings (#1, #2 etc.) until the end of May: Adrienne Adams (no connection to Mayor Adams); Brad Lander; Zohran Mamdani and Zellnor Myrie. These candidates represented a diverse mosaic of NYC, all with a vision to make NYC safe and affordable, and all with the courage to stand up to Donald Trump.

#RankTheSlate was our rallying cry during canvasses and phone banks, along with our adjacent  Don’t Rank Cuomo. When I talked to voters I talked about the full slate, encouraging voters to list all four candidates on their ballots, ranking them by voter’s preference. My candidate was The Slate. Encouraging voters to rank the full slate and not to rank Cuomo meant we had a shot at defeating our corrupt former governor and his billionaire funders who had dropped over $25 million into his “Fix the City” SuperPac.

Of course each individual candidate had their own campaign and their own canvassers who were out on the streets, at green markets, door knocking, at local events, and when NY WFP members and volunteers ended up in the same spaces we embraced and hugged – we knew we were on the same team.

Two months before Election Day, June 24th, NY WFP had members and volunteers in the field canvassing, and full poll site visibility during early voting.

Along with the incredible turnout of 50,000 volunteers who embraced the Mamdani campaign, the NY WFP, in two months prior to Election Day achieved the following:

Knocked 7,750 doors; made 126K phone calls; organized 300 early voting poll site visibility shifts; and over 200 election day poll site visibility shifts.

At the end of May, NY WFP ranked the slate as follows: #1 Zohran Mamdani, #2 Brad Lander, #3 Adrienne Adams, #4 Zellnor Myrie.

Combatting the manosphere toxicity was the absolute bromance between our number 1 and 2 picks. Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander cross endorsed. It was electric – they appeared together at events, made sure that their own supporters knew who to rank second, they even showed up on “Late Night with Steven Colbert”. It made my heart sing. It showed that the strategy laid out by Jasmine Gripper and Ana Maria Archila would work and even before the final vote, I and many others knew we could beat our disgraced former Governor.

Later Zohran and Michael Blake, another Dem candidate on the ballot cross endorsed, proving that Zohran had the capacity to broaden his coalition. Michael Blake had been an NY State Assemblyman from the Bronx and worked in the Obama White House. Blake became my number five.   

I put in lots of leg work – in the best of two ways – the hard work of canvasses making sure folks knew about 1) Ranked-Choice Voting 2) Our #RankTheSlate ballot, and 3) How we could defeat Andrew Cuomo (and eventually the morally corrupt Mayor Eric Adams in the general in November) our legs got a workout knocking doors, climbing stairs, running around green markets, and any event where we could be in front of the public.

I am not your typical canvasser – why? Because I love it. (Not a fan of phone banking, but will do it when asked.) Getting to talk to voters, even non-voters, excites me. It gets one out from the bubble of one’s own like-minded friends. And I am over the top when I am able to hear someone’s concerns and persuade them to vote for the Slate. Though I would add that here in NYC it was not all that difficult. Free buses, free childcare, affordable housing is top of mind for all but the cruel 1% and their allies.

During our early voting, and on Election Day itself, while doing poll site visibility, I would shout to folks on their way in to vote, “#RankTheSlate and No Cuomo”. Inevitably the rejoinder from the voter to me was so sweet as they would yell as they turned around to face me, “Don’t Rank Cuomo”. This meme/slogan broke through. Everyone (well 99% of everyone) said “Don’t Rank Cuomo”.

Central Harlem is where I live. Harlem, while gentrifying is still an African American neighborhood, and Black politicians hold sway – but that is changing. If you look at the data of who voted for Zohran Mamdani vs. Andrew Cuomo, Cuomo held much of the Black vote in the Bronx, parts of Harlem and Brooklyn, but but but, my experience on the streets, knocking doors, poll site visibility – African Americans under 60 were clearly in the Don’t Rank Cuomo camp, with an attitude of “why would you even think I would vote for that sleaze”.  

June 24th, Election Day, I ran into Keith Wright, the Manhattan Democratic County Party leader, whom I have known, and worked with a bit over the past 9-10 years. Keith is one of the old establishment Black leaders in Harlem/Manhattan. He shocked me as I was doing my “Zohran is going to win” happy dance at the corner of Malcolm X Blvd and 134th, the PS 175 poll site. Keith says to me “Zohran is going to win and I voted for him”. Like Popeye I could have said back “Blow me down”. I was stunned. I did not expect this from him. A couple days later on the streets near our Harlem Trader Joe’s, I ran into Keith’s son, Jordan Wright, who is a recently elected NY State Assemblyman from Harlem. Giving Jordan a bit of a hard time for supporting Cuomo, Jordan could not wait to pull out his phone and show me a photo of Zohran and himself. Glad to see Jordan and electeds in NYC realizing that they need to be on the right side of history – even if it is late. (Other electeds need to stop their vile attacks on Mamdani – but that is another article and being addressed by the Mamdani campaign.)

Please see below the statement about Mamdani’s historic win by the two co-directors of the NY WFP, Jasmine Gripper and Ana Maria Archila:

“Tonight, we showed that organized people can defeat the billionaires and corrupt politicians of the past—and together, we can win a more affordable future for New York. New York City showed the country it’s time to usher in a new era of leadership — one that puts working families at the center of their vision. NYWFP—alongside Zohran Mamdani, Brad Lander, Adrienne Adams, and Zellnor Myrie—built a true coalition that represented all New Yorkers. When we run on the dignity and the power of working people, we win.”

“Zohran built a multi-racial movement of working families, powerful and energized enough to defeat the billionaire class and their hand-picked candidate, Andrew Cuomo. The Working Families Party is ready to roll up our sleeves and support Zohran all the way to City Hall.”

Nan Faessler is a NY Working Families Party member and volunteer and an active member of Indivisible Harlem, WE ACT for Environmental Justice and NY Renews