New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Sunday that he’s ending his reelection campaign.
The decision comes after months of poor polling, the loss of millions in public matching funds, and historically low approval ratings.
The New York Times has more:
Mr. Adams had publicly insisted that he would see his campaign through despite dismal poll numbers. But behind the scenes, he was exploring potential exit ramps to avoid an embarrassing finish, with his advisers at one point engaging in negotiations with President Trump’s about an ambassadorship to Saudi Arabia.
Those talks fell apart, and on Sunday, Mr. Adams intended to call it quits in a lengthy video message posted to social media. He gave no indication that he had a specific job lined up after he leaves office.
Instead, in remarks prepared for delivery, the mayor conceded that despite his best efforts, he could not see a path to a second term. He blamed “repeated rumors of my departure” and a decision by the city’s Campaign Finance Board to deny him public matching funds for throttling his campaign.
If you thought Adams would endorse disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo, you were wrong. Adams is taking a different approach in the crowded mayoral race: he isn’t endorsing anyone. Instead, he is warning voters to be wary of both the Democratic nominee, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, and Cuomo, who is running as a third-party candidate.
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Though he never mentions Mamdani by name, Adams pointed to the growing influence of “insidious forces” in city politics. He cautioned that some politicians want to “wholesale destroy the systems we created together over generations in order to usher in a new, untested order led by self-styled saviors.”
The mayor also didn’t mention Cuomo by name, but he wasn’t exactly friendly toward him either.
He does not name Mr. Cuomo either, but vented in familiar terms against a man he has repeatedly said tried to push him aside and spent years waffling on key issues, like public safety.
Politicians like that “cannot be trusted,” Mr. Adams said. He added: “They do not value you or your future. They are out for themselves, not you.”
The mayor plans to say he will serve out the remainder of his term. His name will remain on November’s ballot because the deadline to change it has passed.
The decision appeared to mark a remarkable end to a decades-long political career that was in turns exhilarating and unlikely, taking a working-class son of Queens, who said he was beaten by police as a teenager, to the highest office in New York City government. At one point, he was seriously discussed as a future national Democratic candidate, before accusations of corruption undid him.
Adams had been stagnant in the single digits for months, freeing up only a modest pool of voters. But his exit offers Andrew Cuomo a clearer path to consolidate moderates as both men were competing for a similar lane, running outside the Democratic fold on third-party lines.
The impact that Adams’ departure will have on the race remains to be seen. Cuomo has been working relentlessly to chip away at Zohran Mamdani’s commanding lead. Both he and Donald Trump had urged Adams to step aside, seeing him as an obstacle to unifying opposition. Cuomo is now betting he can scoop up Adams’s supporters—particularly among black and Orthodox Jewish voters—and parlay that into stronger fundraising from business leaders determined to stop Mamdani.
The reality remains sobering. Even with Adams out, polling has suggested Mamdani retains a comfortable advantage. Cuomo’s odds improve only if Curtis Sliwa, still stubbornly resisting Trump’s calls to quit, bows out.
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