New York Mayor Eric Adams Now At 6% Swagger

His brief rise and ongoing fall.

This is really, most sincerely Eric Adams’ only term as New York mayor. He’s running for re-election while currently under indictment on federal corruption charges, and that’s not proving a selling point to New York voters.

A recent poll showed Adams with just six percent support among Democratic primary voters. That’s hardly a winning number, even with a crowded field and ranked-choice voting weirdness. He’s tied with State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, a socialist from Queens. That’s either great for Mamdani or very bad for Adams.

Leading the field is Andrew Cuomo with 32 percent. Cuomo’s the former New York governor who resigned in disgrace under threat of impeachment after the state attorney general’s investigation determined that he had sexually harassed 11 women. I understand the political benefit of name recognition, but you’d think that Democratic primary voters would also remember that Cuomo’s a crawling piece of slime.

Former comptroller Scott Stringer comes in a distant second with 10 percent, and current comptroller Brad Lander is right behind him at eight percent. The only candidate polling worse than Adams is State Senator Zellnor Myrie, who’s not under indictment nor has he been accused of sexual harassment.

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Why Is Eric Adams So Weird?

Adams has blown off his dire polling. He dismissed Cuomo as “another Andrew” — a reference to Andrew Yang, who held a commanding lead in polls before voters calmed down and realized he was Andrew Yang.

“So in February, Andrew was kicking my rear. And you know what? We don’t say Mayor Yang. We say Mayor Adams. So polls don’t make mayors. People do.”

That’s adorable, but Adams managed double digits in those 2021 polls. Yang also had more name recognition, after his attention-seeking presidential run. Adams is the sitting mayor. Yang was a political lightweight, and Cuomo is the former governor, even if he remains the only answer to the question, “Who could be worse than Kathy Hochul?” I desperately hope Cuomo’s lead doesn’t hold, but even if voters come to their senses, Adams is done. He’ll soon join David Dinkins in the one-term mayor club. (New York’s first Black mayor, Dinkins presided over a tough economy, but he was otherwise competent and non-indicted.)

I enjoy bringing this up because it’s hilarious and I’m petty, but three years ago, Nate Silver posted on social media, where people could see, “It’s probably foolish to think a NYC mayor will successfully translate into being a national political figure, but I still think Eric Adams would be in my top 5 for ‘who will be the Democratic presidential nominee after Joe Biden?’”

Obviously, Adams wasn’t the Democratic presidential nominee after Biden. That was Vice President Kamala Harris. Adams wasn’t in anyone’s top five at that point, as he was indicted at the time, but so was Donald Trump. Maybe Democrats should nominate more criminal defendants and convicted felons for a change. It might help in the Rust Belt.

Adams was elected mayor in November 2021 and assumed office in January 2022. Just a couple days later, Silver was talking him up for the presidential nomination. That’s how quickly he’d become the great white centrists’ hope.

“He’s going to be good at getting media attention and he has a chance of carving out a niche that’s different from what other Democrats are offering,” Silver added, as if making monkey’s paw wishes that turn out literally true but horribly wrong . “That’s a potentially powerful combination given how primaries are conducted nowadays. Also, the competition isn’t great.”

The Bulwark’s Paul Alexander wrote in his 2021 article “Is Eric Adams the Democrats’ Next National Star?”:

While conventional wisdom says the left has all the mojo in the Democratic party—think the Squad, Bernie Sanders, the Progressive Caucus—Eric Adams is proof a centrist can create sizzle and even win in a liberal bastion like New York City. His victory has also put him on the radar screen for moderate Democrats across America looking to get behind a centrist who could have a national profile.

Yet by June 2022, Adams’ approval rating was just 29 percent, despite his much-boasted “swagger.” His approval had risen to a still-dismal 37 percent in early 2023 when Biden included Adams as part of a “national advisory board” of Democratic “stars” who would speak on the president’s behalf during his re-election campaign. Adams was later dropped as a surrogate after he blasted the administration about its immigration policy.

Kamala Harris Took Joe Biden’s Ass Whooping For Him. He Should Just Say Thank You.

Adams was sort of an early John Fetterman — staking what he believed were politically convenient positions to the party’s right and gaining approval from center-right pundits whenever he punched left. Of course, senators can get away with occasionally showing up to cast votes while otherwise building their national profile. Mayors and governors are expected to deliver tangible results, and New Yorkers have ruled Adams a failure in almost every measure: They don’t like how he’s managed the city’s budget, homelessness, crime or public schools.

Despite holding the lowest approval of a New York mayor in recorded history, Adams remains delusionally optimistic about his chances. At his State of the City address, he said, “There were some who said, ‘Step down.’ I said, ‘No, I’m gonna step up. I’m gonna step up.’”

He’s offered some more meaningless self-help pablum. If he were running for Dr. Phil, he might stand a chance: “I’m going to connect with people the way I do,” Adams said. “No one is going to outwork me. I am so committed authentically to New Yorkers. They connect with me. I went through some difficult hurdles. It's amazing. I'm still in it with the number of things I had to go through, but I'm still here, and I'm going to do what New Yorkers do.”

If he genuinely planned to “do what New Yorkers do,” he’d get fed up with the current mayor and demand a change. There’s considerable public support for his resignation.