Like much of New York state, New York City’s voter enrollment is overwhelmingly Democratic, so the candidate who wins the primary Tuesday has all but wrapped up the race for mayor.

But who that will be is not yet clear, even on the eve of the primary election.

Most upstate New Yorkers know current New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio as the gangly Red Sox fan who eats pizza with a fork and/or the Wile E. Coyote to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Roadrunner.

But New York City’s mayoral primary is important to upstate New Yorkers for reasons that go beyond knowing who Gov. Cuomo’s next sparring partner will be for the next year or so. 

The city is the economic engine for the state, so the policies of whoever is elected mayor will have an impact statewide. This election is also a major test of what’s called "ranked choice voting," in which voters rank candidates, one through five, by their preference. 

While this method of voting isn’t on the upstate horizon anytime soon, if Tuesday's experiment in New York City is a success, lawmakers may want to expand the concept. 

Spectrum News 1's New York Political Director Bob Hardt discussed some of the race’s themes on Capital Tonight.

“Initially in the campaign, Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, was leading the Democratic pack, but as the race has progressed, crime has gone up in New York City, as well as stories about rising crime,” Hardt explained. “That has led to a surge for Eric Adams, who is the Brooklyn borough president, a former state senator, but most importantly for his resume, a former retired police captain. He’s also African American. So, it’s a double-edged sword, it helps him at both ends.”

The other key theme in the race is New York City’s economic recovery where sectors like tourism, Broadway and hospitality have been devastated.

“We’ve done a poll with Ipsos that shows that voters are really divided about who best would lead the recovery. Yang gets a little more of a leg up,” Hardt said. “Because that’s sort of divided – you have Yang, you have Eric Adams and then you have Maya Wiley, who is Mayor de Blasio’s former counsel. She’s been more to the left, I’d say, of some of the other candidates and has won some of the liberal support.”

Polls open at 6 a.m. on Tuesday and close at 9 p.m.