The Shocking Final Count in the Queens D.A. Race: What Happened

The recount is expected to kick off on Monday. That means elections officials will find a place to put 18 tables — one for each Assembly district in Queens — where two staffers, one Democratic and one Republican, will tally each and every ballot that was cast: absentee, affidavit or regular.

That process could turn up untold numbers of new votes. The city’s ballot machines count only ballots with perfectly filled-in bubbles, but in a manual recount, ballots that were improperly filled out — a check mark next to a candidate’s name, for example, or a circle around it — can be counted.

“It could take two days, it could take five days,” Mr. Goldfeder said. “It depends on how many disputes there are.”

And by all indications, we can expect disputes.

So what does it all mean?

Ms. Cabán’s apparent win last week was hailed as a major triumph for the far left wing of the Democratic Party, one that showed that the progressive energy that fueled Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s win in one Congressional district could translate to a larger, more diverse arena.

If Ms. Katz emerges victorious, it will suggest that more traditional political paths — inching up the ranks of local politics, earning endorsements from unions and other elected officials — still retain much of their power.

And it might highlight the need for progressive candidates to make more inroads with older, religious and minority voters, Mr. Gyory, the professor, said.

But that would still not negate the forces that put Ms. Cabán within a hair’s breadth of victory, he added.

“Whichever way it ends up, it’s tough to make this a case to show that the left is ascendant,” he said. “It’s also tough to say that there’s not a strong progressive pulse.”