New York City Mayor's Race: Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley concede to Eric Adams
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- Both Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley have conceded the NYC Democratic mayoral primary race to Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.
"Eric Adams will be the winner of the Democratic primary," Garcia said Wednesday morning during a press event in Central Park. "I spoke to Eric earlier today and congratulated him."
A short time Wiley appeared outside the Lucerne Hotel on Manhattan's Upper West Side, where she, too, conceded the race and congratulated Adams.
"Lets be clear, this is only the second time a Black New Yorker has been elected mayor this city," she said. "And that has tremendous meaning for so many New Yorkers, particularly Black people."
With most absentee votes included, Adams won with 403,333 (50.5%) votes over Kathryn Garcia's 394,907 (49.5%), according to the Board of Elections' tally.
RELATED: See the latest ranked choice returns in the NYC Primary
"While there are still some very small amounts of votes to be counted, the results are clear: an historic, diverse, five-borough coalition led by working-class New Yorkers has led us to victory in the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City," Adams said in a statement early Wednesday morning.
Hours later, Adams walked along the ticker tape parade route at the city's Salute to the Hometown Heroes and greeted cheering supporters.
Asked by Eyewitness News' Stacey Sager how he felt about being the Democratic nominee, Adams replied, "I'll have a lot of time to talk about being the nominee. Today is the first responders' day and I want to focus on them."
WATCH: Stacey Sager's complete parade route interview with Eric Adams
It's the first mayoral contest in the city determined by ranked choice voting.
Wiley, who stood in second place after primary night two weeks ago, fell to third place after the first ranked choice results.
The results are still not final. Some ballots are still unaccounted. It's also possible legal challenges could follow in a race so tight.
Voting in the primary ended June 22. Early returns showed Adams in the lead, but New Yorkers had to wait for tens of thousands of absentee ballots to be counted and for rounds of tabulations done under the new ranked choice system.
Under the system, voters ranked up to five candidates for mayor in order of preference. Candidates with too few votes to win were eliminated and ballots cast for them redistributed to the surviving contenders, based on the voter preference, until only two were left.
The city's first experience with the system in a major election was bumpy. As votes were being tallied on June 29, elections officials bungled the count by inadvertently including 135,000 old test ballots. Erroneous vote tallies were posted for several hours before officials acknowledged the error and took them down.
The mistake had no impact on the final outcome of the race.
Adams will face Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa in the November General Election.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, was barred by the city charter from seeking a third term.
WATCH | When will we know who wins NYC's mayoral primary?
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