DFP NYC Ranked-Choice Voting Retrospective

Update Aug 30, 2021: Analysis by the New York Times’ Nate Cohn of raw ballot data published by the NYC Board of Elections found that “Eric Adams would have defeated Maya Wiley by 10 points, 54.9 to 45.1, if she had reached the final round of ranked choice balloting.” This further validates DFP’s pre-election polling in which we simulated that, in the same scenario, Adams would garner 56% of the vote to Wiley’s 44%.

Last week, Data for Progress shared an analysis showing that our polling surpassed in accuracy all other public polls released in New York City, and that we also polled more races. 

As the New York City Board of Elections continues to release results, we’re measuring the accuracy of our pre-election ranked-choice simulations against the released ranked-choice results. We find that Data for Progress accurately polled and simulated the ranked-choice voting results, predicting both the candidate relative rankings and vote percentages at each round of voting for both Mayor and Comptroller. 

In fact, our tech team released a memo forecasting these results on June 21st, writing “Garcia and Wiley are neck-and-neck... if Garcia were to advance to the final round, she has a path to victory over Adams, while Adams would emerge victorious were Wiley to advance.”

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Conclusion

These results solidify Data for Progress’ position as the most accurate pollster for Democratic primaries, as we continue to lead the progressive movement with policy and electoral polling in 2021. Read more about our lessons learned and new changes we’re making in our 2020 Polling Retrospective.