Candidates in two competitive Manhattan City Council contests cross-endorsed each other last week right before the start of early voting this weekend.
Taking advantage of the city’s ranked-choice voting system — where voters have the option to rank up to five candidates in their order of preference — sets of competitors for both the council’s 9th and 1st Districts announced they’d rank one another second and encouraged voters to do the same.
In the central Harlem seat of District 9, Assembly Member Al Taylor (D-Manhattan) and Yussef Salaam — a member of the “Exonerated Five” who’s a newcomer to electoral politics — told voters to rank each other second over their rival Assembly Member Inez Dickens (D-Manhattan). Dickens, who’s leading both her competitors in backers and fundraising, scored her own major endorsement last week from Mayor Eric Adams.
