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Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander, the two leading progressive candidates in the race, hope their partnership will help them leverage the ranked-choice voting system to defeat Andrew M. Cuomo.
June 13, 2025, 11:15 a.m. ET
Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander, the leading progressive candidates in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, will cross-endorse each other on Friday, creating a late-stage partnership designed to help one of them surpass former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in ranked-choice balloting.
The candidates, who are second and third in the polls behind Mr. Cuomo, will encourage their supporters to rank them in the top two spots on their ballots. The city’s ranked-choice voting system allows primary voters to list up to five candidates in order of preference.
If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of New Yorkers’ first-choice votes, ranked-choice tabulations will begin. When voters’ top choices are eliminated during that process, their support will get transferred to candidates who are lower on their ballots.
The partnership, which is being announced one day before early voting begins, would effectively turn Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman, and Mr. Lander, the city comptroller, into something of a joint entry. They hope the cross-endorsement will lead to one of them accumulating many of the other’s votes.
Mr. Mamdani, who has steadily risen in the polls and is running second behind Mr. Cuomo, said in a statement that at Thursday night’s debate, he and Mr. Lander had exposed Mr. Cuomo as “a relic of the broken politics of the past.”
“I am proud to rank our principled and progressive comptroller No. 2 on my ballot because we are both fighting for a city every New Yorker can afford,” Mr. Mamdani said.
