Carl Wilson wins NYC Council special election, in a blow to Mamdani

A long tradition of gay leadership will continue on the West Side of Manhattan. Carl Wilson declared victory in the New York City Council District 3 special election Tuesday night, less than an hour after polls closed and initial results showed him with roughly 43% of first-choice votes – up 17 points on his nearest challenger, Lindsey Boylan.

Wilson served as chief of staff to the former council member, Erik Bottcher, who resigned in February after winning a special election for state Senate. Wilson was the favorite in the race, and will be the fifth openly gay member to represent the district, which is a center of the city’s LGBTQ+ community and includes Stonewall Inn. (He would also be one of several former chiefs of staff in the council district to go on to represent it.)

“This isn’t the stage I imagined,” said Wilson, who moved to New York City to be an actor, at his election night party at the Hell’s Kitchen queer bar Vers. “But man, am I thrilled to be on this one.” Wilson was joined on stage by City Council Speaker Julie Menin, Bottcher, former City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, city Comptroller Mark Levine, LGBTQ leader Allen Roskoff and more of his supporters.

Tuesday’s result is also the first indication that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani lacks a magic touch. Mamdani endorsed Boylan a day before early voting started, making this the first real test of the political value of his endorsement – and one that ended in embarrassment. 

“The mayor underestimated gay power,” Roskoff told City & State.

What might have been a sleepy special election crowning Bottcher’s successor on the western stretch of Manhattan from Hell’s Kitchen to the West Village emerged as a proxy battle between Mamdani and Menin. 

Menin endorsed Wilson, who also carried endorsements from the outgoing member, top labor unions and a slew of other elected officials including retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler. Nearly $500,000 in super PAC spending was reported before election day with more to come and the vast majority was benefitting Wilson, including backing from led by the carpenters and teachers unions.

But the day before early voting started, Mamdani endorsed Wilson’s most prominent opponent, Boylan, a former congressional and Manhattan borough president candidate, and a former aide to Andrew Cuomo who was the first to publicly accuse the former governor of sexual harassment. Boylan is endorsed by the New York Working Families Party and lefty politicians including congressional candidate Brad Lander and Council Members Tiffany Cabán and Sandy Nurse, leaders of the council’s Progressive Caucus. Boylan is a new member of the city Democratic Socialists of America, but doesn’t carry their official backing in the race. 

If Menin v. Mamdani wasn’t enough of a proxy battle, the race has also revived pro-Cuomo factions active in the 2025 mayoral race, with a super PAC spending in favor of Wilson that is funded by Cuomo allies and donors. Melissa DeRosa, Cuomo’s longtime aide and an adviser to his mayoral campaign, was seen at Wilson’s election night party. 

The district should have been fertile ground for Mamdani, after he won City Council District 3 with 55% of the vote in November’s general election to Cuomo’s 40%. Mamdani also won the district in June’s primary, beating Cuomo with 44% of first-choice votes. But his endorsement wasn’t enough to overcome Wilson’s support and financial advantage. 

Also running in for Bottcher’s old council seat are Layla Law-Gisiko, a Democratic district leader, and Community Board 4 Chair Leslie Boghosian Murphy. With 99% of scanners tallied on election night, Law-Gisiko had 20% and Boghosian Murphy had 11%. All candidates in the deep blue district are Democrats.

Since no candidate cracked 50% of the first-choice votes tallied Tuesday night, the race won’t be officially called until ranked votes are distributed by the Board of Elections, which will happen first on Tuesday, May 5. However it would be nearly impossible for any other candidate but Wilson to win, given his 17 point lead. 

Despite being a ranked-choice election, there have been few mentions of that fact on the campaign trail, so it’s unclear how much voters will utilize the system. Candidates have not cross-endorsed – a super PAC supporting Wilson has urged voters not to rank anybody but him. Boylan told City & State on Tuesday morning that she ranked Boghosian Murphy second.

There may be a rematch soon, however. All four candidates have filed to run in the June Democratic primary, the winner of which would hold the seat from 2027 through 2029. It wasn’t immediately clear if all the losing candidates planned to mount serious campaigns, or would effectively concede to Wilson, giving his substantial victory in the special.

Mamdani didn’t show up at Boylan’s election night event at The Chelsea Bell. But she suggested her campaign was following in his footsteps. 

“It is not a waste because every incremental conversation we've had, every single policy we put forth, every conversation up a sixth floor walk up, means that we're moving forward as a city,” she said, “and it means that the fight that this mayor came into office with is moving forward too.”

The competitive race for the seat – closer than Bottcher’s blowout win for the open seat in 2021 – has sparked debate over who the seat is for. The district has been held by openly gay politicians since 1991, when Tom Duane won the seat after redistricting aimed to recognize gay voter strength in the home of the Stonewall Inn. Wilson, the only openly gay candidate in the race, would carry on that tradition, and Mamdani has been criticized by some LGBTQ+ leaders for endorsing Boylan. Wilson would also carry on a tradition of representing the district after serving as chief of staff to the preceding council member. (Christine Quinn served as chief of staff to Duane, and Bottcher served as chief of staff to Johnson).

“It’s nice to be able to band together in community to show that the best candidate won, not because he is gay, but because he’s the best candidate and he just so happens to be gay,” Council Member Justin Sanchez told City & State Tuesday night.

Despite the proxy war the race represents between Mamdani and Menin, the two leaders appeared together for a joint, unrelated press conference on the budget on Tuesday. Just a few hours earlier, Mamdani briefly appeared with Boylan outside a poll site. 

The winner of the election could be quickly called on to weigh in on another mayoral-speaker battle. Mamdani recently vetoed legislation sponsored by Eric Dinowitz and backed by Menin that would consider creating buffer zones to protests outside schools. The council would need to gain four votes in support of the bill to override Mamdani’s veto.

Menin spoke to reporters Tuesday night, celebrating Wilson as a candidate with deep community ties and saying she was “ecstatic” to welcome him into the council. But she declined to engage on questions about the so-called proxy war or a potential override battle, saying she is talking to her colleagues about the latter before commenting on it.

Wilson has previously said that he would support a vote by the City Council to override Mamdani’s veto, while Boylan, Law-Gisiko and Boghosian Murphy all said they would not support a veto override.