The progressive New York Working Families Party (WFP) endorsed a slate of four candidates over the weekend in the 2025 NYC mayor’s race, hoping that voters would rank all of them while shutting out Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams.
But can the party’s strategy, which seeks to take advantage of the city’s ranked-choice voting system, actually work in stopping the former governor and current mayor from winning the June 24 Democratic primary?
The left-leaning party endorsed city Comptroller Brad Lander, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, and Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani on Saturday. While the party has not yet rolled out a preferred top choice for its endorsed candidates, it is planning to release a ranked version of its slate in the weeks to come.
The endorsement seeks to utilize the still relatively new ranked-choice system, which allows voters to select up to five candidates in order of preference—with number one being their top choice. The system puts candidates through so-called “instant runoffs,” where those with the lowest number of votes are eliminated, and their ballots go to whomever their supporters rank second. The process continues until one candidate captures over 50% of the vote and wins.
Ranked-choice is designed to uplift candidates with lower name recognition and prevent vote-splitting, which can result in a candidate winning with a plurality rather than a majority.
Their ‘DREAM’ plan
WFP Co-Chair Jasmine Gripper, during a Sunday news conference attended by all of the WFP’s endorsed candidates, said the party is telling New Yorkers to do two things: rank their chosen group of contenders in the top four spots and do not include Cuomo or Adams. The latter point shows the party’s embrace of “Don’t Rank Eric or Andrew for Mayor” (DREAM) — a campaign that some on the left are pushing to stymie Cuomo’s and Adams’ chances of capturing the mayoralty.
“We’re asking every voter in New York City [to] rank the slate, and of course, remember to DREAM and to keep Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo off your ballots,” Gripper said during the event.
“These are the candidates who are ready to move us forward. We do not have to replace one scandal-ridden politician with another. We can and we must do better,” she added, referring to both Cuomo’s and Adams’ myriad scandals.
Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment that he denies, is currently leading the Democratic primary field in the polls. Although Adams is the incumbent mayor, he has a historically low job approval rating and his fundraising has slowed significantly, putting his chances of getting re-elected in serious doubt.
Ana Maria Archila, the WFP’s other co-chair, said the party endorsed candidates who met a specific set of criteria. Those include having a record and ideas consistent with the party’s values, a commitment to stand up to President Trump, a viable campaign, and an agreement to work with the other endorsed candidates.
“They have to be open and willing to have all kinds of conversations that are about collaboration,” Archila told amNewYork. “We need people to be able to say with a straight face that they have each other’s backs.”
Out of the four candidates that WFP endorsed, Mamdani — a Democratic socialist — has gained the most traction. His campaign says he is on track to raise $8 million in private donations and public matching funds and he has come second behind Cuomo in recent polls.
Archila said the WFP has worked to learn from its failure to effectively use ranked-choice voting in 2021 to get its preferred candidates over the finish line. Four years ago, the left-wing candidates in the race failed to coalesce around a coherent strategy, allowing Adams to narrowly win.
That year, the WFP first endorsed a slate of three candidates topped by former city Comptroller Scott Stringer as its first choice, nonprofit leader Dianne Morales as its second, and civil rights attorney Maya Wiley as its third. But then, due to separate scandals that torpedoed both Stringer’s and Morales’ campaigns, the party dropped its support for them and ranked Wiley number one.
The goal of the WFP’s strategy is to keep left-leaning candidates from attacking one another and aligned against Cuomo and Adams instead.
“The ranked-choice voting system creates the opportunity for like-minded candidates to work together, to support each other, to make sure that the aspirations of the communities that they represent are actually the ones that win this election,” Archila said during the Sunday news conference.
A smarter approach to politicking?
Janos Marton and Cristina González, progressive political operatives and partners, said they see a clear difference in how WFP is using ranked-choice this cycle compared to 2021.
“I often hear people say, ‘Oh, ranked-choice, this kind of strategy doesn’t work,'” Marton said. “The reality is, we only tried ranked-choice in New York City once, and that was during COVID. So I don’t really think 2021 is the end all, be all. This is a much more serious and sophisticated approach to ranked-choice than we saw four years ago.”.
But González said the success of the party’s strategy depends on how much money it can spend to educate voters about its slate.
“A strategy is only ever as effective as how much money you’re able to put behind it,” González said. “It will really come down to what kind of investments they are able to put behind this strategy, on their official side, but also on their independent expenditure side.”
Meanwhile, former state Democratic Party Chair and Democratic consultant Basil Smikle said he does not know how effective WFP’s approach will be in sinking Cuomo or Adams, who could both have formidable political operations to overcome.
Smikle said that by choosing four candidates rather than one, the party is not giving voters a clear alternative to Cuomo and Adams.
“Which of the four do you want us to choose from?” he said. “Does it focus the voter on clear alternatives? And as a result of that, I don’t know that it helps any of the four that they’re promoting significantly against two people who are going to have a lot of support.”
