When it comes to politics, New York City is not ‘New York City’

The prompt for this distinction is, of course, the city’s primary election on Tuesday. In a normal year, citywide elections are complicated things, demanding outreach to hundreds of thousands of voters who are often hard to contact and requiring that campaigns navigate complicated and conflicting political communities. This year, though, the city has moved to ranked-choice voting, meaning that voters will be able to indicate their preferences for up to five contenders for positions such as mayor. For the candidates, that means that securing a vote isn’t enough; you need to not only have a core base of support but be palatable even to those whose first choice is someone else.