The race for New York City Mayor is still underway as tellers continue to sort through votes. Andrew Siff reports.
Two full days since polls have closed, and the city is likely weeks away from learning who will be the Democratic nominee for mayor — but don't tell that to Eric Adams.
On Thursday, he took a bike tour around parts of the city he hopes to lead.
"They're going to see me riding my bike, doing my own laundry, going to the supermarket, riding the subway," Adams said. "I'm just going to lead the city in my own unorthodox way. The Eric Adams way."
The Brooklyn borough president has a 10-point lead over Maya Wiley in the first vote count, and each of the top three candidates believes they have a shot. That includes Kathryn Garcia, who is in third place behind Adams and Maya Wiley, but she insists that the math supports her claim that she's still got a good shot at winning the nomination.
"Oh, I think he's counting his chicken before they're hatched. It's not over yet," Garcia told NBC New York.
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The former city sanitation commissioner released a campaign memo illustrating that on top of 800,000 early and primary day votes, there are 100,000 absentee ballots yet to be opened. And another 107,000 that may still be received by next week.
"We have the numbers and the favorability," she said, adding that she think she'll be the second choice for many Andrew Yang voters, after the two campaigned together just before primary day.
"That would be a 10-point bump if they all ranked me. It could be significant," Garcia said.
Adams rejected Garcia's claims that he was taking a victory lap too prematurely, saying "I'd be doing the same thing if I was last in votes."
Meanwhile, Wiley stayed out of the spotlight on Thursday, but said the day before that she too has a path to overtake Adams, saying it "is a path that looks like the city of New York."
Whoever prevails amongst the three will face Republican Curtis Sliwa in the general election come November. But Adams doesn't seem to be waiting around to raise his national profile, making multiple stops on morning news shows on Thursday and calling himself "the face of the new Democratic party" at a morning press conference.
Track live NYC primary results here
He also blasted those to his political left.
"We have allowed a group to hijack the term progressive," Adams said. "I am the progressive! I prevent conditions that create systemic poverty."
Adams also said that he's pre-interviewed some candidates for police commissioner, saying that his leader of the NYPD would be a woman — the first to ever hold the position. The NYPD currently has five female deputy commissioners and six female chiefs.
On June 29, the Board of Elections will tabulate all the votes using the ranked-choice system, and then will do so again the following Tuesday, but including the absentee votes in that count.
