The New York mayor’s race is the latest example of a ranked-choice election. We offer a strategic explainer.
New York City’s mayoral campaign is one of the highest profile instances of a ranked-choice election in the U.S. Rather than selecting only one candidate, voters can instead choose up to five and rank them.
The system has some big advantages. In a traditional election, people who vote for a long-shot candidate — like Ralph Nader, the Green Party presidential nominee, in 2000 — can end up hurting a top-tier candidate — like Al Gore that year. With ranked choice, progressive voters could have listed Nader first and Gore second. Once Nader failed to finish in the top two, the final round of the election would have reallocated his voters to their second choice, which often would have been Gore.
(Ranked choice is also known as instant-runoff voting, because people vote only once. The various “rounds” of voting all occur during the counting of ballots.)
The basic idea is to allow people both to select their favorite candidate and to indicate their preferences among the other candidates. That combination can allow the most broadly popular candidate to win the election, while also making clear the full spectrum of voters’ views. If Nader had received, say, 20 percent of first-place votes in 2000, it could have signaled the appeal of his platform and inspired other progressives to run in 2004.
For these reasons, ranked-choice voting can seem as if it eliminates the need for strategic voting. But it doesn’t. Even with ranked choice, voters sometimes should consider more than their own preferences.
Today’s newsletter offers an explainer — and not just because of New York. Ranked choice has been growing recently, with Maine using it in federal elections since 2018 and Alaska set to begin doing so next year. More than 50 cities — including Oakland, San Francisco and Minneapolis — have also decided to use it, as have state parties in Kansas, Virginia and elsewhere.
Ranked choice has obvious appeal when many people are dissatisfied with establishment politicians and parties.
The Alaska dilemma
To make sense of the complexities, I asked for help from Nate Cohn, who analyzes elections for The Times. Nate suggested we start by looking not at New York’s Democratic mayoral primary, which has eight major candidates, but at a simpler race — next year’s Senate election in Alaska, which appears to have three leading candidates.
One is Lisa Murkowski, the Republican incumbent who occasionally breaks with her party (such as on Obamacare repeal and Donald Trump’s second impeachment). Another is Kelly Tshibaka, a Trumpist Republican. The third is Al Gross, an independent who would likely be a de facto Senate Democrat.
For many Alaska Democratic voters, the order of preference seems obvious: Gross first, Murkowski second — and definitely not Tshibaka. Yet there is a major potential downside to voting that way.
If early polls, like this one, end up being correct, Murkowski could receive fewer first-place votes than either Gross or Tshibaka. Murkowski would then be eliminated, and her votes would be reallocated. Once the second-choice votes were counted, Tshibaka would easily beat Gross.
But if some of Gross’s supporters instead listed Murkowski first, she could receive the second-most first-choice votes and qualify for the final round. In that round, she might beat Tshibaka and win re-election.
This situation creates a dilemma for Democrats: Should they list Gross first, hoping that the polls are wrong and he can win? Or should they list Murkowski first, trusting the polls and supporting the more moderate Republican? The problem has no perfect answer.
The choice for New Yorkers
The broader lesson is that when top candidates tower over the rest — as Gore and George W. Bush did in 2000 — there is little downside to listing another candidate first in a ranked-choice election. But when there is more uncertainty, strategy matters. In an election like Alaska’s, voters may want to list their second or third choice at the top of the ballot, to help that candidate make the final round.
The New York mayor’s race remains highly uncertain, partly because the quality of the polling is unclear, as Nate notes. As a result, there are two reasonable approaches for voters to consider.
The first is to ignore strategy and simply rank your favorite candidates, one through five. The argument for this approach is that ranked-choice voting is so new that nobody knows what will happen. It would be a shame to outsmart yourself and help defeat the candidate you think would make the best mayor.
The second approach is to be strategic. On Monday, the well-regarded Marist Institute for Public Opinion reported that only four candidates — Eric Adams, Kathryn Garcia, Maya Wiley and Andrew Yang — were the first choice of at least 10 percent of voters. By listing one of them first, you could help her or him survive until the final round and possibly win. By choosing anybody other than those four, you may have little say over who wins.
A final piece of advice, from Nate: You can maximize your influence — without hurting your top choices — by filling out all five spots on your ballot. “In such a wide open race, ranking more people increases the chance that your vote counts,” he says.
For more:
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Critics say that ranked-choice voting can sometimes lead to strange outcomes and that a better method is “approval voting,” in which people vote thumbs-up or thumbs-down on each candidate.
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Rob Richie, an advocate for ranked choice, responds that every system has downsides, as the Nobel-winning economist Kenneth Arrow helped show. “Every nonranked system has far greater problems,” Richie told me.
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Here is Nate’s guide to the New York mayoral race, as well as a series of interviews with the candidates, by Times Opinion. And here is a preview of tonight’s debate.
THE LATEST NEWS
The Virus
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California and New York lifted virtually all restrictions on gatherings.
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The U.S. will soon surpass 600,000 deaths from Covid-19, the world’s highest toll.
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The European Union is expected to lift its ban on nonessential travel for visitors from the U.S. on Friday.
Politics
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A federal judge in Louisiana blocked the Biden administration’s suspension of new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters.
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The Senate confirmed Lina Khan to the Federal Trade Commission, a sign of bipartisan skepticism of Big Tech. She will lead the agency.
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Before leaving office, Donald Trump pressured the Justice Department to take up his false claims of election fraud.
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The Senate passed a bill that would make Juneteenth, which commemorates emancipation from slavery in the U.S., a federal holiday.
Other Big Stories
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Israel bombed several sites in Gaza after Hamas sent incendiary balloons into southern Israel, breaking a cease-fire.
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Birthrates have fallen as American women — across social classes — have prioritized education and their careers.
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MacKenzie Scott announced that she had given away another $2.7 billion, including to arts and racial-justice groups.
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Southern Baptists elected a moderate pastor from Alabama as their next president, heading off an attempted takeover by the denomination’s insurgent right wing.
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A pandemic sales slump has left the Girl Scouts with 15 million surplus boxes of cookies.
Opinions: U.S.-Russia relations
Commentary on today’s meeting between Biden and Vladimir Putin in Geneva:
Relations have fallen to a post-Cold War low, partly because of the rise of cyberwarfare, CNN’s Stephen Collinson writes.
But the two countries still have reasons to get along. Putin wants to avoid damaging sanctions, Alexander Gabuev argues in Foreign Policy, while Biden wants to contain China, Elise Labott says.
And both Russia and the U.S. want to address issues like arms proliferation and climate change, Serge Schmemann, a former Times bureau chief in Moscow, notes.
(The Times’s news staff is covering the meeting in a live briefing.)
Morning Reads
Brighter days: This is the summer the youth own New York.
Traveling again: The promise of a truly great passport photo.
Flying treats: Is it safe for dogs and cats to snack on cicadas?
A Times classic: See playground games from around the world.
Lives Lived: Jack B. Weinstein was a federal judge known for both his bold jurisprudence and his outsize personality. On the bench for 53 years, Weinstein has died at 99.
ARTS AND IDEAS
Take a summer vacation
It’s time for a road trip.
Maybe you’d like to visit the Midwest to learn more about the homegrown art of barn quilts. Creators stick painted wood squares inspired by quilt designs onto the sides of barns and other buildings. It’s all very Americana.
Or perhaps getting lost in nature is more your thing. Take in California’s redwoods, soaring and hundreds of years old. You can almost smell their lush green needles.
And then take U.S. Route 1, which passes through 14 states on its way from Key West, Fla., to Fort Kent, Maine. The shifting scenery features seafood shacks, antique shops and endless sunflower fields. — Sanam Yar, a Morning writer
PLAY, WATCH, EAT
What to Cook
Meatball subs are an Italian American classic. For a vegetarian option, try swapping in these mushroom and chickpea-based meatballs.
What to Read
“A Sense of Self,” Veronica O’Keane’s book about the brain and memory, is a remarkable blend of narrative skill and science.
What to Watch
Three filmmakers discuss the freedoms and the fears of directing horror movies.
Late Night
The hosts were unimpressed with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s apology for comparing pandemic restrictions to the Holocaust.
Now Time to Play
The pangram(s) from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was buoyant. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.
Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Medium for a newsletter (five letters).
If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David
P.S. The word “megafandom” appeared for the first time in The Times recently, applied to readers of the “Harry Potter” series.
You can see today’s print front page here.
Today’s episode of “The Daily” is about the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. On “The Argument,” should it be easier to sue over police misconduct?
Lalena Fisher, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.
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