After Eric: The State of the Mayor’s Race

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll look at where the race for mayor stands in the wake of Mayor Eric Adams’s decision to drop out. We’ll also get details on two casino projects. One was voted down. The other is moving on to the next round of review.

“I am the face of the new Democratic Party,” Eric Adams famously declared four years ago. But he may be remembered not for his future in national politics — a future that briefly seemed possible — but as the first mayor in modern times to face bribery and fraud charges. He may also be remembered as the Trump-friendly mayor of the bluest city in the country. He skipped the Democratic primary in June — which usually anoints the next mayor, and which he had won in 2021 — to run as an independent in November. But his campaign failed to gain momentum. I asked Dana Rubinstein, who has covered Adams through his time in City Hall, for an assessment of the race and Adams’s decision to drop out.

What happens now? Is there a way Zohran Mamdani can lose?

Nothing is impossible. But in surveys of the race, Eric Adams consistently polled in the single digits. That suggests that his decision to stop campaigning for mayor is unlikely to affect how a significant number of New Yorkers vote.

That said, anything could happen. New York is dynamic and unpredictable, and we still have five weeks to go until Election Day.

Mamdani said the big-money interests would now coalesce behind Cuomo. Will that help Cuomo’s campaign? He was trailing Mamdani by double digits in the most recent polls.

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