Eric Adams winner of Democratic mayoral primary in New York

Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and a former police captain, is poised to become the next mayor of New York City after winning the Democratic primary in a campaign that focused heavily on crime, gun violence and the recovery of the nation's largest city from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 60-year-old Adams is expected to prevail in November's general election over Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, who founded subway crime-fighting group the Guardian Angels, because Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly 6 to 1.

Adams would be the city's second black mayor after David Dinkins, who was elected in 1989 and defeated in 1993 in a close race by Republican Rudy Giuliani. Dinkins died in November 2020 at the age of 93.

Adams was declared the winner by The Associated Press on Tuesday night after the city's Board of Elections released the results following a ranked-choice tabulation of in-person votes and more than 125,000 absentee ballots. The mayoral primary was held June 22, the first big test of the city's new ranked-choice voting system. Voters were allowed to list up to five candidates in preferential order.

Adams held on to a 1 percent — or 8,426-vote lead — over Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, with fewer than 1,000 votes to be counted. Maya Wiley, former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, came in third. Even with the latest results, the Board of Elections won't declare an official winner until the week of July 12.

On Wednesday, Garcia and Wiley, who sought to become the first female mayor of the city, conceded to Adams.

Garcia and rival candidate Andrew Yang formed a late alliance that gave her votes from his supporters after he withdrew from the race.

Adams' campaign rejected the "defund the police" movement, and he advocated for increasing police presence in high-crime neighborhoods. He also called for "civilianizing" parts of the department staffed by officers and advocated for more black and brown officers to be hired. Adams has said he plans to appoint the city's first female police commissioner.

On Wednesday, Adams said on CBS This Morning that New York needs to treat gun violence "as a public health emergency", which Governor Andrew Cuomo declared in an executive order on Tuesday.

He said too many people have "demonized public protection" because "we have too many abusive officers who were allowed to stay". Adams insisted that he will support the city's police officers but wants those on the force to put public safety first even if morale is low.

"I say to my officers, 'If you don't want to be on the street anymore, then get off my streets,'" Adams said. "I don't want to hear someone say because they don't like what government is doing, (they're) not going to protect my public."

Adams was born in Brooklyn and describes himself as a "son of Brownsville", which is a predominately black neighborhood. He grew up in a working-class household and was raised in the borough of Queens.

When he was 15, he was beaten while in police custody, which he has said sparked his desire to become a police officer and change the department from within.

"I was arrested, I was assaulted by police officers," Adams said on CBS on Wednesday morning. "I didn't say, 'Woe is me.' I said, 'Why not me?' I became a police officer. I understand crime, and I also understand police abuse, and I know how we can turn around not only New York but America."

In 1984, Adams joined the NYPD and later served as the head of the Grand Council of Guardians, a black officers' group. In 1995, he formed 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, an advocacy group that sought to fight racial profiling and police brutality while restoring trust among black residents.

During the 1990s, Adams was briefly registered as a Republican. He left law enforcement in 2006 as a captain when he was elected to the New York state Senate. He served as a senator until 2013.