Muslim apparent winner in NY city democratic primary race for mayor

AP :

Zohran Mamdani, 33, a Uganda-born Indian Muslim who served in the New York State Assembly in Queens, appears to have defeated former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in Tuesday’s Democratic primary race for mayor.

The two bitterly debated on opposite sides of the Gaza war. Last year, Cuomo joined the legal team to defend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is charged with war crimes and faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.

Cuomo, 67, conceded the election, even though New York has a special provision that kicks in when no one receives more than 50 percent of the vote.
The Ranked Choice Voting law allows votes cast for other candidates with lower totals to be assigned to their second ballot choice.

New Yorkers vote to rank candidates from “most preferred” to “least preferred.” If their first preferred candidate does poorly, their next preferred choice receives their vote.
Mamdani received 43.5 percent of the votes while Cuomo received 36.4 percent, with 95 percent of nearly 1 million votes cast. Nine other candidates received between 11 percent and 0.1 percent.