Last week, New Yorkers voted in primaries for the city’s next mayor, public advocate, comptroller, and dozens of city council seats. New York City Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) ran six socialist candidates for the New York City Council. Two of them — Tiffany Cabán and Alexa Avilés — have won, and several other races are still too close to call.

The election was also the first time New York City used ranked-choice voting. With ranked-choice votes and absentee ballots still being counted, the outcome of several elections are up in the air, including a very tight mayoral race between front runners Eric Adams, Kathryn Garcia, and Maya Wiley. Adding chaos to the anticipation, the NYC Board of Elections, “the last bastion of the old patronage system,” nullified its initial results yesterday because it failed to remove test ballots from the system.

Jacobin’s Hadas Thier spoke with Zohran Mamdani, a state assembly member from Queens and one of six socialist state legislators in Albany, about how to assess the recent elections in New York City and the state of the socialist electoral project.