Much speculation has surrounded Eric Adams’ 2025 mayoral campaign, or rather, what many have perceived to be a lack of one. Adams has skipped mayoral forums featuring his competition, including one on the Upper West Side organized by unions last month, and another more recently put together by community leaders in Washington Heights. The incumbent mayor has also not held any campaign events, despite continuing to make public appearances at a regular pace as mayor. The lack of overt presence as a candidate has led many to wonder if the mayor was gearing up for a run as an independent, a category that has a later deadline for petitioning than for Democratic primary candidates, which is coming up next month. Prodded by reporters in a press conference on Monday, Eric Adams made clear that he is running as a Democrat, and struck out at the current front-runner in the polls, Andrew Cuomo.
The incumbent mayor called out the former governor for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, telling reporters that “he incorrectly handled the nursing home issue.” As Cuomo has returned to the spotlight with his mayoral run, longstanding criticism of his management of the COVID-19 pandemic has resurfaced, as at least 15,000 long-term care residents died in nursing homes after he mandated that such facilities must admit patients that tested positive for the virus. On Sunday, six other candidates in the Democratic primary attended an event to mark five years since the start of the pandemic, and to remember those lost. “I think those families are right,” Adams said on Monday, referring to families seeking accountability for Cuomo’s order. “I met with them and I’m going to be communicating with them further.”
The incumbent mayor also criticized other aspects of Cuomo’s management of New York’s health system during that time, such as the lack of PPE for medical workers and racial disparities in vaccine access. “It was because of defunding and destabilizing [of] those hospitals that when they became ground zero [for the COVID-19 pandemic] they were not prepared,” Adams told reporters.
When it came to his own campaign, Adams reassured reporters that he is running as a Democrat, and that his petitioners are “on the street” just like his competition. As far as his fundraising drying up in recent months, Adams returned to his refrain that he’s sitting on a war chest of over $3 million despite other candidates’ recent gains: “people are catching up to me, I outpaced everyone.” Yet, he has not been able to benefit from the city’s matching funds program for campaigns due to irregularities found by the Campaign Finance Board, but still maintained that his campaign will “continue to fight” for them.
Polling in the race so far shows Cuomo far ahead of the competition at around 30 points, with Mayor Adams and Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani competing for a distant second, roughly 20 points behind the former governor, depending on the poll. Mamdani, a relatively unknown Democratic Socialist Assemblymember prior to his insurgent campaign, recently reached the fundraising limit for the primary period ending on June 24th. At least publicly, the mayor is unfazed: “never count New York out and never count Eric out.”
