On November 4th, it was the election day across the United States with particular attention on the New York City mayoral race. The competition was exceptionally fierce, and voter turnout was high. According to the New York City Board of Elections, the number of voters surpassed 2 million, marking the first time in 56 years.
The Board of Elections of New York City celebrated the milestone of over 2 million voters as the official account on social media platform X lit up fireworks near 9 p.m., marking the first time since the 1969 mayoral election that the number of voters exceeded 2 million.
By 6 p.m., approximately 1.75 million voters had cast their ballots either in person on election day or through early voting, with an additional at least 102,000 votes sent in by mail. Three hours before the polls closed, the total number of votes already surpassed the turnout in any of the past New York City mayoral elections since 1993, including the 1.1 million votes in the 2021 race.
Kumar, who has served as a coordinator at voting stations in Flushing for many years, noted that the voter turnout at his polling station this year exceeded any election outside of the presidential race.
The highest voter turnout in a New York City mayoral election was in 1969 when nearly 2.5 million people voted to elect liberal mayor John Lindsay, maintaining the city’s highest turnout to date. The highest turnout in this century was in 2001 with 1.52 million votes, where billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg, representing the Republican and Independent parties, defeated Democratic candidate Mark Green, who was then the city’s Public Advocate. That election took place just two months after the September 11th terrorist attacks.
In 1989, voter turnout also reached a new high when Democrat David Dinkins defeated Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani. Nearly 1.9 million New York voters participated in that election. Four years later, the same number of voters participated in the election, but this time to help Giuliani defeat Dinkins. The turnout was almost as high as the previous election.
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and the Center for Civil Rights jointly conducted a survey on voting behavior outside the 20th School in Flushing. A staff member mentioned, “Young people voted 100% for Mandani,” and pointed out a peculiar situation: “Some who voted for Trump last year voted for Mandani this year.”
Not only did young people vote for Democratic candidate Zohran Mandani, but also middle-aged and older Chinese men made the same choice. Voter Mr. Lin stated outside the 20th School that he voted for the younger candidate (Mandani) because he identifies with his policies on people’s livelihoods, particularly his housing policies. He said he knew how the “old man” Kumer had been performing and thought it might be time for a change.
Many middle-aged and elderly individuals have expressed fear of socialist candidate Mandani. They feel it is better to choose Kumer over the lesser of two evils, believing that voting for Silva would indirectly support Mandani. In order to prevent Mandani from winning, a significant portion of voters who originally supported Silva from the Republican camp abandoned her and turned to Kumer.
A non-profit organization leader, Mr. Chen, who has been in the United States for 45 years, with 30 years as a Republican, mentioned, “I feel Silva doesn’t have much of a chance, so I voted for Kumer.” He also shared that his wife voted for Mandani, saying, “My wife has been in the U.S. since she was 9 years old, and she likes Mandani’s policies.”