Carl Wilson is on track to win the special election to the City Council district representing the West Village, Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, and other parts of the west side of Manhattan on Tuesday, with a strong lead over Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s choice for the seat.
After one round of ranked-choice voting tabulations, Wilson led his closest rival, Lindsey Boylan, who rose to prominence as the first person to publicly accuse former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, her onetime boss, of sexual harassment, by a commanding 43% to 25%, with more than 93% of ballots counted.
“I stand here tonight deeply honored to be your next Council member for District 3,” Wilson told jubilant supporters at his watch party at the bar Vers in Hell’s Kitchen.
Around 10 p.m., Boylan told supporters at the Chelsea Bell she had “called Carl to congratulate him on winning this race.”
Council Speaker Julie Menin celebrated Wilson’s victory, which pitted Mamdani against the Manhattan Democratic establishment. “Tonight, we had a resounding victory by electing Carl Wilson as our next City Council Member,” Menin said in a social media post.
Election officials will keep counting ranked ballots until a candidate crosses 50% of votes.
Wilson will be sworn in to the City Council after the results are ratified, but will need to win the June 23 Democratic primary and the November general election in order to serve a full four-year term.
Wilson defeated Boylan despite her significant name recognition heading into the special election, which was declared when Councilmember Erik Bottcher vacated the seat in January upon his election to the state Senate. It was Boylan’s third run for office, after failed bids for Congress and Manhattan borough president in 2020 and 2021. Wilson had been Bottcher’s chief of staff.
The special election became a proxy war between the city’s democratic socialist faction, headed by Mayor Mamdani, and the Democratic establishment.
Wilson was endorsed by all four of his immediate predecessors, including former Council speakers Christine Quinn and Corey Johnson, and several of the district’s political clubs.
Many of those same leaders despaired at the prospect of Boylan, a straight woman, representing a historically LGBTQ seat, one that is home to the Stonewall Inn, the cradle of the national gay rights movement. Like all four of his predecessors, Wilson is gay.
Wilson “built an unbelievable coalition,” Menin said. There was no immediate comment from the mayor.
A political action committee tied to Cuomo allies poured six-figure sums into ads attacking Boylan and supporting Wilson, her main opponent, New York Focus reported. (Cuomo has denied all accusations against him, by Boylan and other accusers.)
That group, Westside Progress, reported spending $144,500 starting last week on ads, texts and phone calls supporting Wilson.
“Don’t rank socialist Lindsey Boylan,” read one of the online ads, an apparent nod to her status as a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, which did not endorse her.
Approximately 15,000 voters in the 3rd Council district cast their ballots, about half the amount that cast their ballots in the June 2025 mayoral primary. Still, turnout was high for a special election, where the number of ballots cast generally hovers below 10,000.
Under ranked choice voting, New Yorkers can select up to five candidates. If their top pick has the fewest first-choice votes, that candidate will be eliminated, and all of those votes are redistributed to second-choice picks. That process continues, until the winner has more than 50% of the remaining votes cast.
