Heard Around Town
Pro-Eric Adams PAC gets $750k boost
Empower NYC has now raised more than $1 million to support the mayor’s reelection bid, including from the crypto industry.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has not gotten public matching funds for his reelection campaign, but he’s getting outside support. Ed Reed/Mayoral photography Office
Mayor Eric Adams’ longshot reelection campaign may not have public matching funds, but it does have some well-heeled supporters.
The pro-Adams independent expenditure committee Empower NYC has now raised just over $1 million, thanks to a $750,000 haul reported this week. That boost comes from two hefty donations from Scott Lynn, the founder and CEO of Masterworks.io, a fine art investment platform, who donated $500,000, and Jean Marc-Chapus, a prolific investor and co-founder of investment firm Crescent Capital, who donated $250,000 through a trust called Etoiles Trust, according to the PAC. The trust previously donated $50,000 to the PAC in May.
The PAC, which had already brought in $425,000 in the spring, is aiming to raise $15 million, said Abe George, its founder and CEO and a previous candidate for Brooklyn district attorney. Lawyer Eric Lerner is also working with the PAC – though is no longer serving as its president, George said – and is working to help attract donors from the cryptocurrency industry. (Adams and Lerner appeared at the same crypto summit in Las Vegas in May, in a move that raised eyebrows among government ethics watchdogs, as Politico New York reported. Spokespeople for Adams denied collaboration between the candidate and the committee.)
Previous donors to the PAC include billionaire Alexander Rovt, who raised money for Adams’ legal defense trust and owns the building that won the lease for a city agency – the lease situation is the subject of an internal probe – and billionaire Len Blavatnik. Lynn is now the group’s largest funder, replacing real estate executive Gary Barnett, who donated $250,000 earlier in July.
Empower NYC is one of more than half a dozen independent expenditure committees that have formed to spend in the mayoral general election in November, making it a more active race than New York City typically has in the fall. Some of those committees have registered to spend against Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, while others have formed to spend in support of the candidates running against him, including Adams and fellow independent candidate ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Real estate agent and reality TV personality Eleonora Srugo also recently formed a pro-Adams PAC.
The throng of PACs spending in the race could be read as a sign of the lack of agreement among anti-Mamdani forces on the best way to defeat him. (Adams and Cuomo themselves can’t agree.)
George said Empower NYC is attracting support for a reason. “The donors are investing in our plan because unlike other IE’s we plan to operate like a full campaign, identifying Adams' voters and using a comprehensive field strategy to get those voters to the polls,” he wrote in a text.