Manhattan Borough President Race 2021: Levine Leads Early Results

NEW YORK, NY — Hours after the polls closed Tuesday evening in New York City's primary elections, incomplete results for the Manhattan Borough President race showed Mark Levine holding a narrow lead.

By midnight, Levine, a City Councilmember, led the early results with 28.6 percent of the vote, trailed by State Sen. Brad Hoylman at 25.6 percent.

Ben Kallos and Lindsey Boylan were in third and fourth place at 12.4 and 10.4 percent, respectively. All precincts had reported their in-person, first-choice votes.

Tuesday night's results include only the first-choice, in-person votes cast in Manhattan. Final results will not be known until mid-July, when absentee ballots have been counted and voters' second through fifth choices have been factored into the ranked-choice calculation.

Seven Democrats were on the ballot for borough president, vying to succeed Gale Brewer, who is term-limited and running again for her old City Council seat on the Upper West Side.

The five leading contenders included Levine, a City Councilmember from Upper Manhattan; Kallos, a fellow Councilmember on the Upper East Side; Hoylman, a state senator from Lower Manhattan; Boylan, a former state economic development aide; and former community board chair Elizabeth Caputo.

While partly ceremonial, borough presidents' duties include issuing recommendations on land use proposals that can influence their fate. They also control a sizable budget that they can use to fund local projects.

Major issues in the race included some of the key land-use proposals facing the borough, like the SoHo/NoHo rezoning, the New York Blood Center expansion and the 250 Water Street tower at South Street Seaport.

Previous coverage: Manhattan Borough President Race: Where The Candidates Stand