When Eric Adams took office nearly four years ago, many New Yorkers welcomed the ascension of the city’s second Black mayor.
It was a milestone that had taken nearly three decades to reach: the first Black mayor, David N. Dinkins, had lost his re-election campaign in 1993. Mr. Adams’s rise was important symbolically and practically for many Black voters who were eager to see life improve for communities that had often been overlooked.
Now, with Mr. Adams’s decision on Sunday to end his campaign for re-election amid sagging poll numbers — and the confirmation that New York City will have had two single-term Black mayors — some worry that his rocky tenure could undermine Black political power in New York.
For years, the city’s Black electorate has served as a make-or-break base of support for Democratic mayors. But Zohran Mamdani, the party’s mayoral nominee, won the June primary with a coalition that did not include many majority Black precincts. (Since his victory, Mr. Mamdani has focused on reaching out to Black voters and secured endorsements from prominent Black leaders; a New York Times/Siena poll this month shows he now leads his rivals among likely Black voters.)
Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president who is viewed as a possible future contender for City Hall, said despite Mr. Adams’s downfall, he did not doubt that there would be another Black mayor.
“But is this a setback?” he said. “Yes.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader who has been both an ally and a critic of Mr. Adams, said that said that there was a “widespread feeling of sadness” over the mayor’s fate. He also expressed concern that promising Black leaders could face a higher bar in the future to prove they are “squeaky clean.”
But he said Mr. Adams could not overcome concerns about his relationship with President Trump.
Mr. Adams, 65, was charged last year with abusing his office to obtain travel benefits and illegal foreign campaign contributions. The Trump administration asked for the charges to be dropped after Mr. Adams struck an alliance with the president.
As Mr. Adams heads for the exit, a new generation of Black leaders is rising through the political ranks, including Mr. Richards, 42; Antonio Delgado, 48, the state’s lieutenant governor; Vanessa Gibson, 46, the Bronx borough president; and leaders in the City Council like Crystal Hudson, 42, who represents Crown Heights and other neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
Ms. Hudson, a top contender to be the next Council speaker, said Mr. Adams’s trajectory would not undermine other Black politicians.
“I don’t think it limits the future and potential of Black leadership because there are many of us who are working hard,” she said.
Mr. Adams’s victory came at a moment when many New York officials were the first Black leaders to hold their jobs, including Adrienne Adams, the Council speaker; Letitia James, the state attorney general; and Carl Heastie, the speaker of the State Assembly.
As early as his first year in office, Mr. Adams began to draw parallels between himself and Mr. Dinkins, whose victory in 1989 was a truly groundbreaking moment. Mr. Adams and his allies argued that both had faced racist criticism and were portrayed as incompetent. But Mr. Adams and Mr. Dinkins were very different leaders — in style and substance.
Mr. Dinkins, a liberal Democrat who died in 2020, ran on the idea that the city was a “gorgeous mosaic” where neighbors from different backgrounds could coexist. Mr. Adams, a conservative Democrat, ran as a former police officer who would bring down crime and highlighted the diversity of his administration. Mr. Dinkins was known to be reserved and diplomatic; Mr. Adams is outspoken and combative, attacking gentrification and those on the left.
As the mayor’s poll numbers began to crater, he took to calling himself “David Dinkins 2.” Allies of Mr. Dinkins found that idea preposterous.
Patrick Gaspard, a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and an informal adviser to Mr. Mamdani, worked as an aide to Mr. Dinkins. He argued that Mr. Adams did not compare to Mr. Dinkins in terms of his legacy or as a model for Black leadership.
“Eric Adams was a colorful and clever figure who knew how to leverage biography for a particular moment in a fractured field when New Yorkers were trying to survive a global shutdown,” Mr. Gaspard said.
Mr. Dinkins failed to secure a second term after a pivotal moment in 1991 when a driver in a rabbi’s motorcade hit and killed a Black child in Crown Heights. Mr. Dinkins struggled with how to respond to the resulting violence, an episode that was a crucial factor in his loss to Rudolph Giuliani in 1993.
Mr. Adams, in contrast, has faced a wave of criticism on many fronts: budget cuts early in his term to libraries and free preschool; his handling of an influx of immigrants from the southern border; his federal corruption indictment last year; investigations into many people in his inner circle; and his coziness with Mr. Trump.
As Mr. Adams’s mayoralty started to crumble, his support among likely Black voters, his most loyal backers, also sank. It fell to 11 percent, compared with 41 percent for Mr. Mamdani, according to the Times/Siena poll.
Many Black leaders said that Mr. Adams had no one to blame but himself. Mr. Richards credited Mr. Adams for investing in neighborhoods like Southeast Queens and in affordable housing. He also agreed that Black elected officials are sometimes held to a different standard.
But Mr. Adams made poor decisions about the people he surrounded himself with, Mr. Richards said, and was “loyal to a fault.” As more and more people Mr. Adams had handpicked for his administration began to face corruption charges and allegations, an “undeniable pattern developed,” Mr. Richards added.
“The corruption left a sting,” Mr. Richards said. “Speaking with the elders in my community, many would often say that what was happening was embarrassing.”
Mr. Richards said that Mr. Adams’s decision to align himself with Mr. Trump and to “parrot” his talking points was the final straw for many supporters who were being negatively affected by the president’s policies.
“When we see you in bed with Trump, we can’t forgive that,” Mr. Richards said.
Mr. Adams emerged victorious from a crowded Democratic primary field in 2021 by focusing on his biography, discussing his struggle with dyslexia and saying he was beaten by the police as a teenager. He made the powerful argument that his life experiences gave him the ability to strike a balance between public safety and respecting people’s civil rights.
At the center of many of his stories was his mother, Dorothy Mae Adams-Streeter, a house cleaner who raised six children in poverty. At his inauguration in Times Square, Mr. Adams held a framed portrait of his mother in a brandy snifter — an image that connected with the Black and immigrant families who voted for him.
He brought out her image again on Sunday when he announced he would suspend his campaign, placing a poster of her next to him on the stairs inside Gracie Mansion.
“Only in America can a story like this be told,” he said.
Some Black leaders have lamented the way that the mayor’s accomplishments have been overshadowed by scandal. Shams DaBaron, a prominent advocate for homeless people, said that Mr. Adams deserved credit for expanding Safe Haven beds and approving the City of Yes housing plan to build 80,000 units.
“The numbers don’t lie,” he said.
But even some longtime allies saw before the primary that Mr. Adams represented the past, not the future. Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, the chairwoman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party and a close friend of the mayor, endorsed Mr. Cuomo in March and then Mr. Mamdani in June.
She was with Mr. Mamdani at Clarendon Road Church in Brooklyn on Sunday and said that he was winning over Black voters, many of whom voted for Mr. Cuomo during the primary.
“He’s spending a lot of time in Harlem and Southeast Queens,” she said. “He’s meeting every single group. He’s not taking anything for granted.”
Emma G. Fitzsimmons is the City Hall bureau chief for The Times, covering Mayor Eric Adams and his administration.
Jeffery C. Mays is a Times reporter covering politics with a focus on New York City Hall.
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