It wasn’t supposed to take this long. Eric Adams, the wildly unpopular mayor of New York City, had reportedly been offered off-ramps from his hopeless reelection campaign for months: a Trump administration job, private-sector paydays, and more. Rumors even swirled that he had recorded dropout videos. On Sunday afternoon, it finally happened.
“Despite all we’ve achieved, I cannot continue my reelection campaign,” Adams said on camera while seated on a staircase at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence. He blamed “constant media speculation about my future” and the denial of millions in matching funds by the city’s campaign finance board, which cited paperwork problems and allegations of a donor scheme detailed in Adams’ bribery indictment that was dismissed this spring after intervention by the Justice Department.
At that moment, Andrew Cuomo’s phone rang. A prominent New York investor wanted to know how he could help now that the former New York governor’s struggling campaign had just gotten a second wind. The Democratic political establishment that was initially stunned by Zohran Mamdani’s rise and then increasingly desperate to stop him had the first piece of good news in months. They wasted no time in their efforts to capitalize on the moment.
