Bottcher Holds Commanding Early Lead In District 3 Council Race

LOWER MANHATTAN, NY — Erik Bottcher, the chief of staff to Council Speaker Corey Johnson and former special assistant for community affairs to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has a commanding early lead in the Democratic primary for the City Council District 3, according to NY1.

With 100 percent of the district's precincts reporting their first-choice votes, Bottcher has 47.9 percent of those top selections, according to NY1.

Behind him is Arthur Schwartz with 15.2 percent of the tallied first-choice votes and Leslie Boghosian Murphy with 14.3 percent, reports NY1.

Tuesday night's results include only the first-choice, in-person votes cast in District 7. 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 tabulation.

Here's the complete distribution for first-choice votes reported by NY1 so far:

• Erik Bottcher: 47.9 percent
• Arthur Schwartz: 15.2 percent
• Leslie Boghosian Murphy: 14.3 percent
• Aleta LaFargue: 8.8 percent
• Marni Halasa: 8.1 percent
• Phelan Fitzpatrick: 5.6 percent

2021 is the first year that all the City Council races are ranked-choice voting.

There were no Republican candidates in the election for District 3 — occasionally a candidate will run as an independent after the primary date in the November election — but whoever wins Tuesday night's Democratic primary will almost certainly be the new council member for Lower Manhattan's District 3.

The Lower Manhattan district includes West Village, Greenwich Village, parts of SoHo, Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen, Midtown, the Flatiron District, the Garment District, and a small section of the Upper West Side.