Mamdani shock gives NYC Mayor Eric Adams a shot at a comeback

By Laura Nahmias, Nacha Cattan and Gregory Korte

Andrew Cuomo’s loss is Eric Adams’ gain.

Just days ago, the New York City mayor faced steep reelection odds. His job-approval ratings had plunged to record lows after a federal corruption indictment. Support among Democrats fell even further when the Trump administration dropped the charges, raising questions about Adams’ indebtedness to the White House.

But Adams, who dropped out of the campaign as a Democrat to run as an independent, is suddenly looking less toxic to a class of moderate voters. The reason: The surprise ascendancy of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assemblyman who crushed Cuomo in Tuesday’s primary election to become the all-but-certain Democratic nominee.

Now Cuomo’s backers — many of them opposed to Mamdani’s populist platform of taxing the wealthy and raising corporate levies — are discussing whether to pivot their support to Adams, according to people familiar with the matter. Those same donors are encouraging the former governor, who considered a run as an independent, to drop out of the race entirely to avoid being a spoiler, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing private conversations.

On Wednesday, Adams launched a new campaign slogan: “Delivers. Never Quits.” In the evening, he met with donors, advisers and supporters — including hedge fund manager Dan Loeb, real estate executive Michael Lorber and Adams’s former chief of staff Frank Carone — to plot out his campaign strategy, said people with knowledge of the gathering.

“We have two choices, which is to support Mamdani and try to get on his good side, or try to see if we can resurrect Eric,” said Jeff Gural, chairman emeritus of real estate firm Newmark Group, who donated to Cuomo’s PAC. He said he would “certainly” rather have Adams than Mamdani.

Adams kicked off his revamped campaign Thursday on the steps of City Hall in front of a couple hundred supporters who were often drowned by protesters just outside the gates. As his supporters tried to counter the protests with chants of their own, Adams urged them not to be distracted.

“They have a record of tweets,” Adams said in a not-so-veiled reference to Mamdani’s campaign, which was powered by social media. “I have a record on the streets,” said Adams, a former police captain. “You don’t lead this city from a soapbox. You lead it from the ground up.”

Donors to Cuomo’s campaign and the PACs that backed him had together raised more than $30 million, with support from billionaires including Loeb, Bill Ackman, Steven Roth and former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

The longtime member of the Democratic establishment quickly emerged as a front-runner in the crowded primary — a striking development given his 2021 resignation as governor after multiple charges of sexual harassment, which he denies.

The Cuomo campaign’s ability to raise money in seven-figure checks helped to starve the Adams campaign of donors. The incumbent mayor lost the endorsements of Democratic officials and the labor unions who’d backed him in 2021. He also lost out on public matching funds, dealing a significant blow to his campaign, which has $3 million in cash on hand.

An Emerson College poll from May found 69% of city voters had an unfavorable view of the mayor, and that he would win just 15% of the votes in a hypothetical four-way general election against Mamdani, Republican Curtis Sliwa and independent Jim Walden.

Now, Adams’ standing has climbed in prediction markets, which see a slightly wider lane for the incumbent to campaign in.

Credit: Bloomberg

“Eric has actually done a good job especially lately as he’s surrounded himself with a superstar police commissioner and his first deputy is also well-regarded,” said Gural. “Obviously he’s made some mistakes but I think he has the city going in the right direction.”

Scott Rechler, the head of RXR and a donor to Cuomo’s campaign, also said he wants the field to narrow.

“The risk in the general election side is that Adams, Cuomo and a Republican candidate wind up splitting votes, and Mamdani falls into City Hall by default,” Rechler said. “Hopefully it becomes a field of one.”

Cuomo has said he will wait to see the full results of the ranked-choice voting primary before making a decision on his campaign.

Mamdani already has the backing of Democrats such as US Representative Jerrold Nadler, Kings County Democratic leader Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

An adviser to Cuomo’s campaign noted that Democrats and labor unions quickly coalesced behind progressive Bill de Blasio when he won the 2013 Democratic mayoral primary against then-City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who had broad support among business leaders and moderate Democrats.

Cuomo polled well with older Black and Hispanic outer-borough voters, groups that helped bring Adams to victory in 2021. But that wasn’t enough to overcome Mamdani’s turnout among younger New Yorkers, who voted in significantly higher numbers than they had in the 2021 primary.

Some Republican donors and strategists are now discussing pathways to remove Republican nominee Sliwa from the party’s ballot line in November in order to give the spot to Adams. That maneuver is a tricky one to execute — under New York election law, candidates can only be removed from the ballot if they’re disqualified — typically by dying, going to prison, or moving out of the state.

Sliwa denied he was looking for an exit. “The only job I’m focused on is earning your support to be the next Mayor,” he wrote on social media. “I am running to serve you and move this city forward on January 1, 2026. No one else.”

Ackman, one of Mamdani’s most vocal Wall Street critics, said on X Wednesday that he hasn’t made a decision on who he’s now backing. But Adams isn’t out of the running: The hedge fund billionaire said he likes the mayor and may ultimately endorse him.