A major city. A heated mayoral election. A familiar dilemma: a moderate, business-friendly Democrat versus a democratic socialist. New Yorkers, take it from Chicago — we’ve seen this movie before, and the ending isn’t pretty.

New Yorkers will cast their ballots Tuesday in New York’s mayoral primary, where 11 candidates are vying to win the Democratic primary in America’s largest city. Frontrunner and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is in a tight race against New York state assembly member Zohran Mamdani.

Mamdani wants to freeze rents, open city-owned grocery stores, provide bus service for “free,” tax corporations and the 1%, and increase the minimum wage to $30, among other left-wing positions that differ greatly from Cuomo. Most of Mamdani’s ideas are shared (at least in principle) by Mayor Brandon Johnson, and many of them are popular in blue cities. But experience has taught us here that far-left candidates do not make for effective or popular municipal executives in today’s stressful economy.

Johnson tried to float a $300 million tax hike — and failed. He tried to pass a “mansion tax” that would’ve hiked the real estate transfer tax — and failed. He’s built too few affordable housing units for too much money. He’s isolated himself from many of the state and federal officials he hopes will come to his financial rescue, and he’s done egregious special favors for the people who got him elected — namely, pushing an incredibly costly new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union. He forced out a highly competent schools chief who wouldn’t cow to his desire to borrow recklessly. His city is broke, but he wants to spend more. The list goes on.

Johnson’s approval rating cratered in his second year — a reflection of how quickly progressive promises collapsed under the weight of governance and Chicago’s financial reality. What sounded good in theory has translated into dysfunction, driven by fiscal missteps and political inexperience.

Johnson is one of the most progressive mayors in the U.S., but Mamdani, inarguably, is yet more radical.

In the end, the New York mayoral race likely will come down to voter turnout. Unfortunately, like most places, voter participation in New York has steadily declined, dropping from 93% of registered voters in 1953 to 57% in 1993 to just over 20% of registered voters in the 2021 mayoral election.

A new Marist College poll shows Cuomo leading Mamdani 55-45 in a ranked-choice tally. However, the same poll finds Mamdani with a 34-point advantage over Cuomo among voters under 45, and young voters have turned out during early voting. The wild card is cross-endorsement. Mamdani and fellow candidate Brad Lander have done just that in a bid to take down Cuomo.

Unlike Chicago’s nonpartisan runoff system, New York uses ranked choice voting, allowing voters to list up to five candidates in order of preference. If no candidate gets a majority of first-choice votes, the one with the fewest is eliminated and those ballots are redistributed to voters’ next choices. This process repeats until one candidate receives more than 50% and is declared the winner.

We’re intrigued by New York’s ranked choice process, which offers voters the chance to express their preferences more fully and encourages candidates to pursue broader support than do traditional voting processes.

Turnout for the mayoral primary in Chicago was abysmally low — just 36% of registered voters cast a ballot in the 2023 primary. We blame that, in part, on the city’s decision to hold these primary elections during the harshest weather we face all year, in the heart of February, though vote by mail exists as a remedy for folks who don’t wish to brave the cold on their way to the polls.

Low turnout makes it easier for radicals to capture public office. And that’s a mistake we hope New Yorkers don’t make. If New Yorkers are frustrated with Mayor Eric Adams, they should be careful not to trade him for someone who might preside over a city that is less competitive and less financially secure.

Trust us — we’ve living that reality.

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