Mayor Eric Adams of New York City insists that he is running for re-election. But if actions speak louder than words, evidence would strongly suggest otherwise.
The mayor has taken few concrete steps to launch a serious campaign, even as he faces a growing field of prominent challengers in the June 24 primary, less than four months away.
Mr. Adams has not held any campaign events this year. He has no campaign manager. His fund-raising has slowed. The painstaking petition process to get mayoral candidates’ names on the ballot began late last month, yet the mayor’s signature-gathering operation appears to be limited.
Two key advisers, Evan Thies and Nathan Smith, have not joined his re-election campaign and declined to comment about whether they would return. At this stage in the 2021 race, Mr. Adams’s campaign had already paid the advisers’ firms tens of thousands of dollars.
Now even some of the mayor’s closest allies have expressed doubts that he will run and are beginning to support other candidates.
Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, a state lawmaker and loyal ally of the mayor who leads the Brooklyn Democratic Party, said that Mr. Adams has told her that “absolutely he’s running.”
But she acknowledged the “sense” that the mayor will not run. “People just don’t see the same type of operations that they saw four years ago,” she said.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, another key ally, noted that other mayoral candidates, including former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker, have discussed their campaigns and a potential endorsement. He said he found it odd that the mayor had not done so.
“He and I talk often, and he’s never brought up re-election,” Mr. Sharpton said. “He hasn’t asked me for an endorsement or for advice. Nothing.”
The mayor’s poll numbers took a precipitous fall this week, as a Quinnipiac University survey found that his approval rating had sunk to record lows. Only 20 percent of voters support him, and more than half said he should resign. Mr. Cuomo, who has been popular with the mayor’s base of Black voters, led the poll with 31 percent support.
Mr. Adams’s surge in unpopularity follows the Justice Department’s move to dismiss the five-count federal indictment that he faces. The mayor was accused of entering into a quid pro quo, agreeing to use his position to aid President Trump’s immigration agenda in exchange for a dismissal of his case.
Mr. Adams has consistently denied any such agreement. But in recent weeks, the mayor has met with Trump’s “border czar” and has said he will sign an executive order to allow federal immigration officers access to the Rikers Island jail complex.
Representative Adriano Espaillat has told allies that he would be unlikely to support Mr. Adams for re-election after the mayor’s cooperation with President Trump on immigration, according to two people who were familiar with the matter.
Candace Randle Person, a spokeswoman for Mr. Espaillat, who is chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said that he plans to convene a group of elected officials, clergy members and community leaders to interview all mayoral candidates before making a decision about whom to support.
Some allies believe that Mr. Adams will not make a final decision about re-election until after the federal judge in his corruption case decides whether to drop the charges. But some of the mayor’s former backers are not waiting until then.
Ruben Diaz Jr., the former Bronx borough president, announced on Thursday that he would back Mr. Cuomo. He and Mr. Espaillat had endorsed Mr. Adams in 2021.
“New York City is at a pivotal moment, one that requires a steady hand and strong leadership to deal with the issues we face at home in our streets and the federal government’s dramatic turn away from our values,” Mr. Diaz said in a statement.
Eddie Gibbs, an assemblyman from East Harlem and one of the mayor’s close allies, recently signed a letter, circulated by Ms. Bichotte Hermelyn, calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul to refrain from using her power to remove the mayor from office.
Then last week, Mr. Gibbs endorsed Mr. Cuomo for mayor.
He said he hadn’t heard from the mayor. “He never talked to me. I never knew what he wanted to do or what he was going to do,” Mr. Gibbs said. “I don’t know if he’s running. He’s been noncommunicative.”
Even Frank Carone, the mayor’s former chief of staff who has been leading fund-raising for his re-election campaign, recently acknowledged to Politico that he had been in contact with Mr. Cuomo and one of his advisers for months and had “great respect” for the former governor.
Three other key strategists from the mayor’s 2021 campaign — Ben Tulchin, a pollster, and Jason Ralston and John Lapp, who worked on his television ads — have not been paid by the campaign this year and did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Sharpton did not endorse in the 2021 mayor’s race, though he favored Mr. Adams and Maya Wiley, a civil rights lawyer. He said he was trying to decide whether to endorse this year, noting that he had worked closely with Ms. Adams for two decades and had a “good relationship” with Mr. Cuomo.
Mr. Adams, the city’s second Black mayor, has lashed out at criticism from Black leaders — comparing himself to Jesus and accusing them of a “lynch mob mentality” — and insisted that history would judge his record kindly.
At an unrelated news conference on Thursday, he insisted that he had no plans to drop his candidacy, saying that the contest “is so far from over” and that he would rely on his decades of political campaign experience in this moment. “I will see people at the end of the race and see who gets over the finish line,” the mayor said.
But he also sometimes appears to be coming to terms with his dwindling hopes of a second term. The mayor said on Monday that he had been walking the halls of City Hall at night viewing the portraits of former mayors and was proud that his image would appear alongside David N. Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor, who he says was unfairly denied a second term.
“That’s been the greatest thrill of my life to get here,” Mr. Adams said. “That was the meat and potato. Term two is the gravy. I have a full stomach with the meat and potatoes.”
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