{"id":22100,"date":"2026-04-29T12:07:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/22100\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T12:07:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:07:12","slug":"carl-wilson-defeats-mamdanis-choice-in-council-special-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/22100\/","title":{"rendered":"Carl Wilson Defeats Mamdani\u2019s Choice in Council Special Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carl Wilson is on track to win the special election to the City Council district representing the West Village, Chelsea, Hell\u2019s Kitchen, and other parts of the west side of Manhattan on Tuesday, with a strong lead over Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s<\/a> choice for the seat.<\/p>\n

After one round of ranked-choice voting tabulations, Wilson led his closest rival, Lindsey Boylan, who rose to prominence as the first person to publicly accuse former Gov. Andrew Cuomo<\/a>, her onetime boss, of sexual harassment<\/a>, by a commanding 43% to 25%, with more than 93% of ballots counted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI stand here tonight deeply honored to be your next Council member for District 3,\u201d Wilson told jubilant supporters at his watch party at the bar Vers in Hell\u2019s Kitchen.<\/p>\n

Around 10 p.m., Boylan told supporters at the Chelsea Bell she had \u201ccalled Carl to congratulate him on winning this race.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Council Speaker Julie Menin celebrated Wilson\u2019s victory, which pitted Mamdani against the Manhattan Democratic establishment. \u201cTonight, we had a resounding victory by electing Carl Wilson as our next City Council Member,\u201d Menin said in a social media post.<\/p>\n

Election officials will keep counting ranked ballots until a candidate crosses 50% of votes.<\/p>\n

Wilson will be sworn in to the City Council after the results are ratified, but will need to win the June 23 Democratic primary and the November general election in order to serve a full four-year term.<\/p>\n

Wilson defeated Boylan despite her significant name recognition heading into the special election, which was declared when Councilmember Erik Bottcher vacated the seat in January upon his election to the state Senate. It was Boylan\u2019s third run for office, after failed bids for Congress and Manhattan borough president in 2020 and 2021. Wilson had been Bottcher\u2019s chief of staff. <\/p>\n

The special election became a proxy war between the city\u2019s democratic socialist faction, headed by Mayor Mamdani, and the Democratic establishment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wilson was endorsed by all four of his immediate predecessors, including former Council speakers Christine Quinn and Corey Johnson, and several of the district\u2019s political clubs.<\/p>\n

Many of those same leaders despaired at the prospect of Boylan, a straight woman,<\/a> representing a historically LGBTQ seat, one that is home to the Stonewall Inn, the cradle of the national gay rights movement. Like all four of his predecessors, Wilson is gay.<\/p>\n

Wilson \u201cbuilt an unbelievable coalition,\u201d Menin said. There was no immediate comment from the mayor. <\/p>\n

\"\"City Council District 3 includes the West Village, in addition to Chelsea, the Hudson Yards and Hell\u2019s Kitchen. Credit: Hiram Alejandro Dur\u00e1n\/ THE CITY<\/p>\n

A political action committee tied to Cuomo allies poured six-figure sums into ads attacking Boylan and supporting Wilson, her main opponent, New York Focus reported<\/a>. (Cuomo has denied<\/a> all accusations against him, by Boylan and other accusers.)<\/p>\n

That group, Westside Progress, reported spending<\/a> $144,500 starting last week on ads, texts and phone calls supporting Wilson.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t rank socialist Lindsey Boylan,\u201d read one of the online ads, an apparent nod to her status as a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, which did not endorse her.<\/p>\n

Approximately 15,000 voters in the 3rd Council district cast their ballots, about half the amount that cast their ballots in the June 2025 mayoral primary<\/a>. Still, turnout was high for a special election, where the number of ballots cast generally hovers below 10,000.<\/p>\n

Under ranked choice voting<\/a>, New Yorkers can select up to five candidates. If their top pick has the fewest first-choice votes, that candidate will be eliminated, and all of those votes are redistributed to second-choice picks. That process continues, until the winner has more than 50% of the remaining votes cast.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carl Wilson is on track to win the special election to the City Council district representing the West…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8186,13426,8,9,7,760,2099],"class_list":{"0":"post-22100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-andrew-cuomo","9":"tag-campaign-2026","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-voting","14":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116487916270168832","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}