Goodbye Mayoral Candidate Eric Adams. We Can't Wait to Have You Back on our Screens Again.
Mayor Eric Adams finally made the announcement he had been teasing for weeks. Now what?
If the campaign for the NYC Mayoral Election has seemed somewhat tepid compared to the zinging excitement of the Primary, where a Democratic Socialist candidate polling at 1% came from behind to beat the behemoth of New York establishment politics, then worry not. Things are about to start sizzling again.
After weeks of denying this possibility, rebuffing offers from the Trump administration to step down (that Ambassadorship to Saudi Arabia must be looking pretty good right now), and blaming the media for his flailing campaign (Adams was polling behind Andrew Cuomo AND Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa), Eric Adams chose to end his Mayoral Campaign on Sunday, September 28. Making him, as many on Twitter have speculated, the second Black Mayor of NYC to have served a single term, after David Dinkins. After becoming New York’s first Black Mayor in 1989, Dinkins’ term ended in 1993, after he lost the election to Rudy Giuliani.
That Eric chose to drop out on a Sunday, after weeks of will-he-won’t-he (he was always going to) speculation indicates not the ailing health of his erstwhile Mayoral campaign but also Adams’ desire to minimize the impact to the extent it was possible, with most reporters not working on a Sunday afternoon (not yours truly, of course). It must be noted, however, that Adams’ name will still remain on the ballot, since his campaign ended weeks after the deadline to remove it (as will former Mayoral candidate Jim Walden’s). Running on the Safe And Affordable Ballot line (now where have we heard that before?) after ditching the End Anti-Semitism line, Eric Adams campaign was announced in late June, soon after the Mayoral Primary and lasted three months.
What does this mean for a race where Zohran Mamdani is comfortably but not tremendously ahead of Cuomo (as writer Michael Lange recently noted) and what happens next? Here are some possibilities that appear more likely than others.
More anti-Zohran PAC dollars for the former Governor and current challenger to Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo
Anti-Mamdani PACs have been anxiously donating to Cuomo’s campaign, especially since their effort to stop Mamdani in the Primary failed miserably. It is evident that with Adams out of the race, the dynamics of the race have shifted fundamentally, (if the Cuomo campaign have their way) in favor of the former Governor (and possibly Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa). Like in the Primary, Cuomo and related PACs will spend tremendously on TV AD buy, directly attacking Mamdani.
Instead of the 33-year-Democratic Socialist’s relative inexperience (a charge that has since been diffused with Mamdani’s ‘generational talent’ to make everyone, even his opponents feel heard), it could be Mamdani’s 2020 remarks about Defunding The Police (a statement that he has since walked back) or his support for a bill to decriminalize sex work in NYC. Either way, if you still watch cable TV, be prepared for onslaught like never seen before.
A possible coalition between Adams and Cuomo
Over the last several weeks, Adams has oscillated between targeting Cuomo and Mamdani equally. If anything, Andrew Cuomo received most of his ire, including (an admittedly hilarious video Adams posted on Instagram set to the tune of Radiohead’s Creep). But in the video where Adams announced the end of his campaign — filmed on the steps of the Gracie Mansion where he is seen holding a photograph of his mother — Adams cautions about the rise of political violence and urges New Yorkers to beware from “those who claim the answer to destroy the very system we built together over generations. That is not change. That is chaos”.
In a surprising about-face, Adams asked New Yorkers to choose leaders by not what they promise (a not even remotely thin reference to Mamdani’s affordability agenda) but by what they have delivered. While Mayor Eric Adams declined to endorse any particular candidate, it is clear, in what is poised to once again become a two-person race (with the exception of Sliwa garnering the left over votes over Cuomo), that his support lies with the more ‘experienced’ Cuomo. So don’t be completely shocked, if you see former foes Adams and Cuomo turn into friends, as quickly as the coming few days.
An aggressive relaunch of the volunteer operation from Mamdani’s campaign
The Mamdani campaign is given credit for doing a lot of things right, and behind ahead of the news cycle is certainly up there. During the diffident lurch of the Adams campaign towards its conclusion, the Mamdani campaign has been racking up endorsements from key leaders and powerful unions in New York politics. As was reported widely over the last few weeks, Mamdani now has the Albany’s Big Three in his corner, which include Governor Kathy Hochul, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins. But not be outdone in his ground game of volunteers that led Mamdani to his shocking Primary victory, the campaign launched the Fall Canvass last week and reported knocking over 230,000 doors since the launch of the field program in mid-August.
Given the all-hands-on-deck response from the Mamdani campaign, pro-Mamdani PACs like New Yorkers for Lower Costs and the New York wing of the Working Families Party, within minutes from the Adams announcement, there is no doubt that the Mamdani camp have not only anticipated this move for weeks but have been actively planning to be ahead of it.
If during the Primary, Zohran Mamdani made a habit of giving surprise appearances during concerts popular with the inhabitants of the ‘Commie Corridor’ (and beyond), like singer-songwriter MJ Lenderman and musician and performer DJO (Joe Keery from Stranger Things), then last night, he appeared alongside the High Holy Priestess of Queer, alternative music, Lucy Dacus. While most concert goers at her All Things Go set in Forest Hills, Queens last night were expecting Hozier to be the surprise guest, judging from the videos coming out of the performance, Mamdani’s appearance was greeted by equal, if not more, enthusiasm. On stage, Mamdani called for a city, where ‘Trans New Yorkers are cherished, our queer neighbors are celebrated, and where each and every New Yorker can be the fullest version of themselves.
While protection of LGBTQ+ and Trans communities have always been a part of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, his call especially stood out as Mayor Eric Adams spent the last two weeks attacking the state laws that allow Trans folks to enter the bathrooms that align with their gender identity. While simultaneously the Trump administration revoked millions of dollars in Federal funds from state’s specialty magnet schools for failing to comply with their directive to ban Trans students from entering the bathrooms of their choice. Giving further fire to the speculation from the Working Families Party and Mamdani’s own campaign, that the Eric Adams announcement was directly influenced by the Trump administration.
With Eric Adams out of the race, less than six weeks left till the election date of November 4th, and the Mayoral field now significantly narrowed, it is safe to say that stakes for both Cuomo and Mamdani got a lot higher. But as we say goodbye, to the Eric Adams Mayoral Campaign, which if nothing else, proved to be wildly entertaining — in the press conference held on September 5th where speculation was rife about Adams dropping out, he instead announced that he was staying in, and called Andrew Cuomo, “a snake and a liar” — he will be remembered as a candidate who kept people glued to everything he said. And in an attention economy where brands, politicians and individuals are out competing each other for scraps of screen time, that definitely counts for something.
Let’s pour one out in his honor, and listen to this AI-generated banger (?) of a campaign song Adams released just last week. And in Eric Adams’ now iconic words pledge to make our enemies our “waiters when we sit at the table of success”.
“This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Lauren Brown Fellowship.”
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