Mayor Eric Adams of New York saw donations to his re-election campaign take a nosedive after his federal indictment last month on five counts of bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations.
Of the roughly $146,000 in donations reported for the filing period of July 12 to Oct. 7, only $250 was contributed after news broke of his indictment, according to the New York City Campaign Finance Board. It came from one unemployed donor on Sept. 26, the same day the federal indictment was unsealed.
The mayor’s haul was less than half the amount raised by Brad Lander, the city comptroller, who took in just over $315,000 for his mayoral campaign.
It was also 51 percent less than what Mr. Adams raised during the same period last year, when he received almost $296,000 in donations.
Scott M. Stringer, a former city comptroller who is running for mayor, raised $180,000 in the last three months. Zellnor Myrie, a state senator from Brooklyn who is also running for the office but is less well known, raised $137,000.
“The special interest and permanent government money has turned off the spigot,” Mr. Stringer said about Mr. Adams’s fund-raising numbers.
Mr. Adams has raised a total of $4.1 million for his 2025 mayoral re-election campaign. That money could unlock another $4.3 million in matching funds — putting him above the $7.93 million spending cap for the June primary. It is unclear whether the mayor will qualify for matching funds, which have not yet been disbursed.
In a statement, Vito Pitta, a compliance lawyer for the Adams campaign, said that “Mayor Adams’s strong support from New Yorkers continues — and the campaign has now raised the maximum amount it can spend in the primary with anticipated matching funds for his re-election far ahead of schedule.”
The mayor is accused of conspiring with foreign nationals to illegally funnel money into his 2021 and 2025 mayoral campaigns through so-called straw donors. The indictment also detailed instances in which Mr. Adams’s 2021 campaign encouraged businessmen to circumvent contribution limits by having their employees make donations and then reimbursing them.
Mr. Adams’s campaign, the indictment said, would later boost these donations using the city’s matching funds program, which awards candidates $8 for every dollar they receive from a city resident up to the first $250.
There have been calls to bar Mr. Adams’s 2025 campaign from tapping into the program. Lincoln Restler, a city councilman from Brooklyn who leads the committee that oversees the Campaign Finance Board, sent a letter to the board last month asking it not to award the mayor any matching funds.
Both Mr. Lander and Jessica Ramos, a state senator from Queens who is running for mayor, have also said that Mr. Adams should not receive matching funds. The Campaign Finance Board will make a decision on the matter in December.
In a statement, Rebecca Rodriguez, a senior adviser to Mr. Lander, contrasted the comptroller’s “strong fund-raising” with the “major questions swirling around Eric Adams’s ability to qualify for matching funds due to his federal indictment.”
Mr. Adams filed his donations by Friday’s reporting deadline, according to the Campaign Finance Board, but unlike his mayoral challengers, he did not immediately publicize his numbers.
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