NYC-CC03: We might not know who won the Manhattan City Council special election till next week

The hotly contested race to succeed former New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher for his Manhattan seat will come to a head Tuesday – just don’t bet on getting an immediate answer on who will emerge victorious.

If nobody gets more than 50% of the vote in the first round of ranked choice voting, results might not be clear until May 5th – a week after the April 28 special election. That’s because the Board of Elections needs time to collect the ballots from the voting machines as well as any additional ballots that come in by mail during the week, according to Vincent Ignizio, deputy executive director and spokesperson for BOE. Come next Tuesday, the board will run a full RCV breakdown.

Four candidates are fighting to represent Manhattan’s West Side after Bottcher, one of the city’s most well-known gay leaders, won a state Senate seat last year and vacated his position representing the Council District 3 Public interest has steadily mounted as the special election has spurred debate about the importance of identity in a part of the city that’s long been represented by an LGBTQ+ elected – and as it’s devolved into a battle between Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin.

The city’s two most powerful elected officials are backing two different candidates, intensifying the race’s drama. While Menin joined Bottcher in endorsing his former chief of staff Carl Wilson, who is gay, Mamdani is backing Lindsey Boylan, a former gubernatorial aide who became the first woman to accuse former Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment.


https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2026/04/we-might-not-know-who-won-manhattan-city-council-special-election-till-next-week/413150/?oref=csny-homepage-river