A new poll released by Pulse of the Primary: 2021 NYC Mayor’s Race, presented by Fontas Advisors and Core Decision Analytics (CODA) finds that though New Yorkers are cautiously optimistic about the post Covid-19 future of New York City, and they understand how crucial the Mayoral election is in the City’s history, they are undecided about who the next mayor should be.
“With vaccinations underway and restrictions slowly being lifted, New Yorkers appear to see hope at the end of the Covid tunnel with a solid majority of voters believing that NYC will bounce back the same or better than pre-pandemic times,” said George Fontas, Founder and CEO of Fontas Advisors. “It’s not surprising to learn that recovering from the pandemic is the highest priority to voters, though it’s extraordinary to see that public education far outpaces other issues, reiterating that a functioning in-person school system is mandatory to return the City to normalcy.”
Key findings of likely voters include:
Is New York City headed in the right direction?
- 52% think yes
- 34% think no
- 14% are not sure
What will New York City in March of 2022?
- 58% think things will be either better than things were prior to the pandemic or back to the way things were before the pandemic
- 25% think things will be about the same as today
- 9% think things next year will be worse than now
The top five issues for New Yorkers are:
- Vaccine distribution and stopping the pandemic (91%)
- Improving public education (88%)
- Creating new jobs and opportunities (86%)
- Homelessness (85%)
- Healthcare, non Covid-19 related (84%)
If the Democratic primary were held today, who would you vote for?
- Undecided (50%)
- Andrew Yang (16%)
- Eric Adams (10%)
- Maya Wiley (6%)
- Scott Stringer (5%)
- Ray McGuire (4%)
- Shaun Donovan (2%)
- Kathryn Garcia (2%)
- Dianne Morales (2%)
- Someone else (1%)
Not only is the election completely up in the air but having ranked choice voting looks to leave New Yorkers confused and upset. Only 15% have heard, read, or seen “a lot” about ranked choice voting. 41% have heard “nothing” about ranked choice voting.
Under the ranked choice voting system, voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference per race, rather than just select a single candidate. If one candidate does not get most votes, then the candidate who is in last place is eliminated and the votes cast for that person will be redistributed to the other candidates based on their second-place selection. This process continues until there are just two candidates remaining and a victor is declared based on which one has most of the votes.
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