Campaign

Yusef Salaam on track to win New York City Council seat with Democratic primary lead

by Jared Gans - 06/28/23 11:27 AM ET

Yusef Salaam, a member of the exonerated “Central Park Five” who was wrongfully convicted of the rape of a female jogger in Central Park, is on track to win a seat on the New York City Council.

Salaam holds a significant lead over his opponents to win the Democratic primary for the seat representing the 9th Council District, part of Harlem, with 50.14 percent of the vote in his favor and 99 percent overall reporting. His opponents include New York Assembly members Inez Dickens, who has about 25 percent of the vote, and Al Taylor, who has about 14 percent of the vote.

Incumbent Kristin Jordan dropped out of the race last month but remained on the ballot and had about 9 percent of the vote.

New York’s ranked choice voting system requires a candidate to win a majority of the votes in the first round to win outright. The system would kick in if no candidate wins a majority, and the votes for the lowest-performing candidate would be redistributed among the remaining candidates based on their voters’ second preference.

But Salaam declared victory in the race in a speech to his supporters Tuesday.

“What has happened in this campaign has restored my faith in knowing that I was born for this,” he said.

Dickens conceded late Tuesday. If Salaam wins the Democratic nomination, he would almost be assured of victory in the general election in a district that is heavily Democratic leaning.

Salaam’s likely victory comes more than 20 years after he and four other men were exonerated through DNA evidence in one of the city’s most infamous crimes. All five, who are Black or brown, were teenagers at the time when they were arrested in 1989 on charges of beating and raping a white female jogger.

The members of the group served between five and 12 years in prison before prosecutors reviewed the case. DNA and a confession from a serial rapist cleared the five of them, and their convictions were vacated in 2002.