Eric Adams, surrounded by faith leaders, officially launches his reelection campaign

He’s taking in donations again. His campaign website is live. His scandal-scarred advisers are back in public view. And most importantly, he’s got an opponent he thinks he can beat.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ reelection campaign stepped out of the shadows on Thursday, with a kickoff rally that crowded the steps of City Hall. The show of support for the recently embattled incumbent mayor came not from establishment Democrats or major unions who backed him in 2021, but the faith leaders who have stood by him through unprecedented turmoil over the past year.

The crowd of a few hundred people that led chants of “four more years” – in English and Spanish – included the Rev. Herbert Daughtry and former City Council member and City Hall faith adviser Fernando Cabrera. Before Adams took the stage, a half a dozen speakers sang his praises, including Bishop Chantel Wright, Jewish leader Mijal Bitton and Sheikh Musa Drammeh. Interfaith leaders have been a crucial and constant source of support for Adams, who has leaned on his faith in good times and bad. He’s suggested his path to City Hall was divinely ordained. Following his indictment on corruption charges last fall, it was faith leaders who rallied behind him as he faced calls to resign. When those charges were dropped at the insistence of the Trump Department of Justice – sparking new calls to resign in light of his cozying up to the Republican president – he said his “faith in God is stronger right now than it ever is.”

So when a couple protesters interrupted his campaign rally on Thursday, calling him a “fucking criminal” and a sellout to Trump, he reverted to a natural strength. “Notice how we utilize the letter F for faith. Our opponents utilize the letter F for profanity.”

“When I became mayor, … one of the most important partnerships that I developed were the partnerships I developed with our faith-based leaders,” he later said. “They knew something that I knew: prayer works.”

Governing with an eye toward reelection

Adams’ main opponent in the November general election is all but certain to be Zohran Mamdani, who overtook ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo by a wide margin in first-choice votes in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Adams, a registered Democrat, bowed out of the crowded primary to run as an independent in November. (Cuomo has so far notably stopped short of committing to run on the independent ballot line that he petitioned for as a back-up plan.)

With record low approval ratings and the tarnish of scandal clouding his viability, Adams is hoping that Mamdani’s youth, privileged background, identification as a democratic socialist and criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza will aid his longshot bid to keep his seat as an independent candidate. In fact, he’s seemed almost excited about the prospect of facing Mamdani in November – certainly more than he was about Cuomo. With the 33-year-old Assembly member having thoroughly outperformed the former governor in the primary, the city’s powerful business and real estate leaders seem willing to look past the string of scandals that scarred Adams’ tenure. Wednesday night, a group of business leaders and political brokers met with the mayor to discuss potentially backing him in the general election, seeing him as their best bet to stop Mamdani, The New York Times reported. 

Since the corruption charges against him were dropped by President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, Adams has been steadily laying the groundwork to court supporters in the general election long before officially kicking off his campaign Thursday. Late last week, Adams announced that his administration would no longer pursue the controversial plan to move the city’s quarter million public service retirees from traditional Medicare to Medicare Advantage health care despite the state’s highest court ruling that the city could go forward with its initial plan. Backlash to the planned switch had become a significant issue on the campaign trail as many of Adams’ challengers pledged to not move forward with Medicare Advantage if elected. 

With the help of First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, Adams also recently announced a deal to preserve Elizabeth Street Garden in Nolita, nixing long-standing plans to build affordable apartments for seniors on the city-owned land. While the reversal drew outcry from many elected officials and pro-housing groups, it was also heralded by the garden’s defenders – many of whom are celebrities and wealthy, well-connected residents from the surrounding neighborhoods. Following a town hall meeting with Orthodox Jewish leaders who’d requested his aid, Adams moved to remove part of a protected bike lane installed last year on Bedford Avenue only to be temporarily halted by a judge. It’s not the only way he’s sought to court the Orthodox Jewish community’s support over the past couple of months. Adams also created an office to combat antisemitism and signed an executive order that recognized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. Just look at the two ballot lines’ the mayor petitioned to run on: “EndAntiSemitism” and “Safe&Affordable.”

Stay focused, no distractions, and grind

Between the mayor’s job doubling as one of the country’s greatest bully pulpits and the massive $115 billion budget at its disposal, the power of incumbency is a real thing. Adams’ three predecessors all successfully won a second term – and Mike Bloomberg did it twice. The last mayor to lose reelection was David Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor whose name Adams often invokes when he talks about bias he faces. Of course the position Adams is in currently is a far cry from other incumbent mayors – including Dinkins. A mere 20% of New Yorkers approved of the way Adams was handling his job as mayor in early March – the lowest job approval rating of any New York City mayor in nearly 30 years. Over the past year alone, Adams has faced a five-count federal corruption indictment, mass calls to resign from fellow electeds across the state, a series of FBI raids targeting some of his closest friends and advisers, high levels of turnover, the controversial dismissal of said federal corruption indictment, and a great deal of backlash for his friendly relationship with Trump. Not to mention the city’s Campaign Finance Board has denied him millions of dollars in public matching funds. 

Adams’ best bet in the general election will be to secure the backing of the city’s business community – and more specifically, the millions of dollars at its disposal – to garner mass support from Jewish voters, get independent and Republican voters to support him over GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa or independent candidate Jim Walden, and to replicate his success in 2021 with outer-borough communities of color. The latter could prove to be more difficult than Adams and his supporters initially thought. Mamdani outperformed expectations in the primary election, dominating his own progressive base while also expanding the electorate to encompass younger voters and  Asian and Latino voters and even stayed competitive in some of the communities Adams had dominated in 2021. 

Following Adams’ rally – where Mamdani was repeatedly referenced – the Assembly member’s campaign said in a statement that he entered this race to end Adams’ shot at a second term. “New Yorkers have been suffocated by a cost of living crisis and this Mayor has taken almost every opportunity to exacerbate it, all while partnering with Donald Trump to tear our city apart,” Mamdani’s statement read. “Just as voters made clear on Tuesday, they will do so again in November – choosing a city they can afford and bringing an end to the politics, and politicians, of the past.”

But Adams seemed undaunted Thursday, declaring, “God has made the pathway for me to achieve."