Adams, Garcia lead in NYC mayor’s race: poll

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and former New York City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia top a new poll in the city’s upcoming Democratic mayoral primary on June 22.

The Marist Poll survey, sponsored by WNBC, Telemundo 47 and Politico, shows 24 percent of likely primary voters will rank Adams as their first choice, followed by 17 percent who say Garcia is their first pick.

Civil rights attorney Maya Wiley and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang are the only other contenders to win double digit support for a first choice at 15 percent and 13 percent, respectively.

The mayoral primary will be conducted via ranked choice voting, meaning that should no candidate get 50 percent or more of the vote on the first round, voters’ subsequent picks are taken into account until one contender emerges with a majority of the vote.

The poll shows Adams ultimately besting Garcia in a 12th round by a 56-44 margin.

Wiley is knocked out at the 11th round in the poll, while Yang makes it to the 10th round.

The poll follows several others showing Adams in a strong position in the eight-way race.

Yang led the field for months before losing ground to Adams, another centrist, and Garcia, a third moderate who got a boost last month with an endorsement from The New York Times. 

Meanwhile, Wiley, an attorney who worked for Mayor Bill de Blasio before becoming an MSNBC legal analyst, is looking to consolidate progressive support around her campaign.

Scott Stringer, the city’s comptroller, was a progressive rival before his campaign imploded following sexual misconduct allegations.

Wiley has won support from prominent liberals such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

The survey is one of the few polls put out for the primary, which is relying on ranked choice voting for the first time in city history, thus fueling complicated polling tabulations.

The poll surveyed 876 likely Democratic primary voters in New York City from June 3-9 and has a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points for the first round. “Statistical uncertainty increases with each round of ranking,” Marist noted.