The Board of Elections in New York has released the full results of the mayoral election, confirming that Democrat Eric Adams got 753,801 votes, more than doubling Republican Curtis Sliwa’s tally of 302,680. Of course, we already knew that Adams won in a landslide — we knew that it was going to be that way all along. The real time that New York chooses its mayor these days is in the Democratic primary.
So, what’s the big deal about the publication of the results? The write-in candidates. From Aaron Anderson to Zu Jie Zheng, New Yorkers had so many other options for mayor, the list of them runs for 40 pages.
Sometimes people vote for themselves. Sometimes people vote for candidates like Maya Wiley who didn’t make it through the primary. Some people vote for dead past mayors like Fiorello LaGuardia… or as one person who voted for the airport’s namesake voted, either in the midst of a stroke or with some incredibly bad handwriting, FIARELLO LABUERDIA.
Most importantly, there were sports votes. There are lots of teams in New York, but there can be only one Sports Mayor. And from the results of this election within an election, we can see the importance of coalition building.
The new Sports Mayor of New York is Aaron Judge, whose nine votes were enough to defeat Julius Randle’s six. But here’s the thing: the only “candidates” who received multiple votes were Judge, Darryl Strawberry, and four Knicks or Knicks-related names. “Knicks-related” because in addition to Randle with six, R.J. Barrett with three, and Tom Thibodeau with three (actually two, plus one for “Tom Thibodau”), coming in with two votes?
BING BONG.
Now, does that mean the Bing Bong guy? The character Bing Bong from Inside Out? The general concept of Bing Bong and this new era of Knicks fandom? Sadly, we’ll never know. But what we do know is that New York remains a Knicks town, with these totals dwarfing the solitary votes received by each member of the Nets’ big three. Yes, even Kyrie Irving somehow got a vote, same as Seymore Butts and Stefani Germanotta, the latter better known as Lady Gaga.
And to the person in Brooklyn’s 54th Assembly district (Bushwick/Cypress Hills) who voted for Trae Young… I just wanna talk.
*yes, “Kevia Durant” got one vote, tying with Kim Jong-Un and Kim Kardashian, one vote above Kevin Durant’s official tally of zero.