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The city of New York, New York held regular elections for mayor, city council, public advocate, and comptroller on November 2, 2021. A primary was scheduled for June 22, 2021. The filing deadline for this election was March 25, 2021.

New York City also held special elections for City Council Districts 11 and 15 on March 23, 2021. The filing deadline for these elections was January 19, 2021.^[1]

New York City also held a special election for City Council District 31 on February 23, 2021. The filing deadline for this election was December 16, 2020.^[2]

New York City also held a special election for City Council District 24 on February 2, 2021. The filing deadline for this election was November 18, 2020.^[3]

Click here to learn more about the city's mayoral election.

Click here to learn more about the city's Democratic primary election for comptroller.

Elections

Click on the tabs below to show more information about those topics.

City offices

	2023 → ← 2020
2021 New York elections
Election dates
	Filing deadline: November 18, 2020 (special), December 16, 2020 (special), January 19, 2021 (special), March 25, 2021 (regular election)
	Primary election: June 22, 2021 (regular election); General election: February 2, 2021 (special), February 23, 2021 (special), March 23, 2021 (special), & November 2, 2021 (regular election)
Election stats
	Offices up: Mayor, city council (regular and special elections), public advocate, and comptroller
	Total seats up: 58 (click here for mayoral elections);
	Election type: Partisan
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Comptroller

See also: Comptroller election in New York, New York (June 22, 2021, Democratic primary)

General election

General election for New York City Comptroller

Brad Lander defeated Daby Carreras, Paul Rodriguez, and John Tabacco in the general election for New York City Comptroller on November 2, 2021.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Brad Lander (D)	69.6	752,710
		Daby Carreras (R / Save Our City Party)	23.1	249,460
		Paul Rodriguez (Conservative Party)	5.5	59,251
	Submit photo	John Tabacco (L / Independent Party)	1.7	18,802
		Other/Write-in votes	0.2	1,935

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 1,082,158
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Democratic primary election

Democratic Primary for New York City Comptroller

Select round:

The following candidates advanced in the ranked-choice voting election: Brad Lander in round 10 . The results of Round are displayed below. To see the results of other rounds, use the dropdown menu above to select a round and the table will update.

	Candidate	%	Total Votes	Transfer	Round eliminated
	Brad Lander	30.9	268,064	0	Advanced (10)
	Corey Johnson	22.5	195,025	0	10
	Michelle Caruso-Cabrera	13.5	117,134	0	10
	Brian Benjamin	7.6	66,276	0	9
	David Weprin	7.2	62,641	0	8
	Kevin Parker	5.7	49,555	0	7
Submit photo	Reshma Patel	5.3	45,601	0	6
	Zachary Iscol	3.2	27,756	0	5
	Alex Pan	2.8	24,266	0	4
Submit photo	Terri Liftin	1.1	9,978	0	3
	Undeclared Write-insUndeclared write-in candidates may advance past the first round in some ranked-choice elections. If the official source reports write-in votes by candidate name, Ballotpedia displays them alongside the ballot-qualified candidates. However, if write-in votes are reported without a name, they will instead be included in the total write-in votes figure in Round 1. Please consult the official elections source for more details about unnamed write-in candidate vote totals past Round 1.	0.2	1,791	0

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 868,087
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Chris McNickle (D)
Helen Rosenthal (D)

Republican primary election

The Republican primary election was canceled. Daby Carreras advanced from the Republican primary for New York City Comptroller.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

John Tabacco (R)

Conservative Party primary election

The Conservative Party primary election was canceled. Paul Rodriguez advanced from the Conservative Party primary for New York City Comptroller.

Ballotpedia identified the June 22, 2021, Democratic primary as a battleground primary. For more on the Democratic primary, click here.

Brad Lander won the Democratic primary for New York City comptroller on June 22, 2021. Ten candidates ran in the primary. The general election was on November 2, 2021.

Seven candidates were mentioned by media outlets as leading candidates and led in endorsements and/or fundraising:^[4]^[5] Brian Benjamin, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Zachary Iscol, Corey Johnson, Brad Lander, Kevin Parker, and David Weprin.

The primary election featured the use of ranked-choice voting (RCV). Voters were allowed to rank up to five candidates on their ballot in order of preference. A candidate had to receive a majority of votes cast to win the election, and votes for eliminated candidates were redistributed based on the next preference on the ballot. Lander received more than 50% of the vote after 10 rounds of tabulation. Click here to learn more about RCV in this election.

The comptroller's duties include performing audits of city agencies and managing five public pension funds. As of March 2021, the funds totaled $253 billion in assets.^[6] Discussing the city's elections in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, The New York Times' Jeffery C. Mays wrote, "Like the race for mayor, the contest for comptroller may be the city’s most consequential in decades, and the June 22 Democratic primary will most likely decide its winner. ... The city had a 20 percent unemployment rate, and is still projecting hefty future budget gaps." Mays also wrote that the comptroller would oversee how federal stimulus money issued in response to the pandemic was spent.^[7]

Each candidate argued that their background equipped them for the office.

Benjamin, a state senator, previously worked for a housing developer and in financial management for Morgan Stanley.
Caruso-Cabrera was a financial analyst for CNBC.
Iscol served in the Marines and is a business and nonprofit founder.
Johnson was speaker of the New York City Council at the time of the primary.
Lander, also on the city council as of the primary, co-founded the council's Progressive Caucus.
Parker, a state senator, previously worked for investment banking firm UBS PaineWebber and as project manager for the New York State Urban Development Corporation.
Weprin, a state assemblyman, previously served on the city council, where he was chair of the Finance Committee for eight years.

At the first official debate on June 10, candidates offered different ideas about which city agencies should be audited more frequently. As of 2021, agency audits were required every four years. Lander said he would prioritize auditing the Department of Corrections in addition to big agencies like the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the Department of Education. Caruso-Cabrera said she would prioritize auditing the Department of Education. Johnson proposed annual audits for the education, homeless services, housing preservation and development, and police departments. Weprin said he would audit all city agencies every year. Iscol said he would audit the city's "holistic response, a multiagency response to specific problems, like public safety, like homelessness, like the education gap." Parker said big agencies should be audited more frequently and that the first one should be the NYPD. Benjamin also said he would prioritize auditing the NYPD.^[8]

Click here to view candidates' key messages.

Also running in the primary were Terri Liftin, Alex Pan, and Reshma Patel.

See more

See more here: Comptroller election in New York, New York (June 22, 2021, Democratic primary)