New York City
DC 37 launches new PAC to boost mayoral candidate Adrienne Adams
The PAC is working with Red Horse Strategies, consultants who backed Mayor Eric Adams in 2021.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams Yuki Iwamura-Pool/Getty Images
District Council 37’s No. 1 ranked endorsement of Adrienne Adams is coming with some cash. The public sector union launched a new independent expenditure committee last week in support of the City Council speaker’s bid for New York City mayor. And they’re working with some of the architects behind Mayor Eric Adams’ 2021 campaign to do it.
Red Horse Strategies, one of the consulting firms behind Mayor Adams’ 2021 victory, has been paid nearly $300,000 by the new committee from DC 37, dubbed “Competent New York.”
It’s not clear exactly how much money the union plans to put behind the effort backing Speaker Adams, but a spokesperson said it would be in the “high six figures.” The union has already supported Speaker Adams in a direct donation of $2,100 to her campaign in May. The union first announced their endorsement of Speaker Adams alongside Attorney General Letitia James with a press conference at their headquarters in April. Though DC 37 also announced No. 2 and No. 3 picks Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, only Speaker Adams was featured at the press conference.
DC 37’s work with Red Horse on the effort marks the firm’s first foray into the 2025 mayoral race. The firm has been active in other City Council and borough president campaigns this year, but has not been directly involved with any mayoral campaigns following their work with Eric Adams in 2021.
A late entrant to the race, Speaker Adams hasn’t caught on as a front-runner, though she’s eclipsed several candidates who have been in the race longer. In a late May Emerson College poll, she won roughly 8% of Democratic respondents’ votes in the first round of a ranked-choice voting simulation, putting her in fifth place. She recently qualified for public matching funds, allowing her campaign to run its first television ad.
Speaker Adams’ campaign declined to comment. Independent expenditure committees do not face the same spending limits that campaigns do, but the committees are not allowed to coordinate their actions with the campaigns they’re supporting.
The primary beneficiary of outside spending in the Democratic primary for mayor so far has been former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Fix the City, the super PAC boosting his campaign – and opposing Mamdani’s campaign – has raised more than $10 million.