New York City Mayor Eric Adams has suspended his reelection campaign, placing a significant minority of Jewish votes up for grabs in November’s election.
Adams announced his decision in a nine-minute video on Sunday, saying, “Despite all we’ve achieved, I cannot continue my re-election campaign.” He had consistently been polling fourth in the four-man race, with some polls showing only single-digit support.
The dramatically poor showing for an incumbent followed a string of scandals for Adams, who was indicted on federal corruption charges last year. The Trump administration successfully pushed to drop the charges, though not before a Jewish prosecutor resigned rather than comply. Adams’ deal with the administration — acknowledged by both Trump officials and the judge overseeing the case — involved him supporting Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts in New York City, where they are deeply unpopular.
The end of Adams’ campaign is seen as certain to narrow the gap between frontrunner Zohran Mamdani and ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who like Adams is a former Democratic official running as an independent. Most polls have shown Mamdani with a clear lead even in a three-way race featuring him, Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
Adams’ exit from the race had been rumored for several weeks, despite his public demurrals. At one point rumors swirled that he was weighing an appointment from the Trump administration, potentially as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, but no job ever materialized.
Among voters turned loose by Adams are a sizable number of Jews, who polls showed have made up a significant portion of Adams’ support. A Quinnipiac poll released earlier this month showed that of the 12% of voters who favored Adams, 42% said they were Jewish.
A different poll released in late July found that Conservative and Orthodox Jews made up Adams’ single largest demographic voting bloc.
Adams — whose support among Orthodox Jews helped him win the 2021 mayoral election — had made a significant play for Jewish voters. His petition to run on “EndAntisemitism” was seen as a challenge to Cuomo, who previously called antisemitism “the most serious and important issue” in his campaign. (The city’s election board blocked Adams from using it, saying he needed to choose one party line.) It also presented a counter to Mamdani’s criticism of Israel, which has drawn accusations of fueling antisemitism.
Adams did not endorse another candidate in his video, though he appeared to criticize Mamdani without naming him, warning, “Beware of those who claim the answer is to destroy the very system we built together over generations.” Many of his voters are expected to swing to Cuomo, though some are seen as likely to opt for Sliwa instead.
In his video, Adams noted that he had appointed the first Jewish woman to helm the city’s intelligence agencies — a reference to Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD’s director of intelligence and counterterrorism. His NYPD chief, Jessica Tisch, is also a Jewish woman.
But Adams also drew criticism as mayor for his seemingly narrow view of Jewish leadership. In 2022, soon after he took office, dozens of women rabbis and cantors asked to meet with him to demonstrate that not every rabbi is “a man with a beard.”
Adams has also been a staunch supporter of Israel as mayor, traveling to the country in 2023 shortly before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. In the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that initiated the war, Adams spoke at a citywide gathering of thousands of Jews, saying, “Not only am I the chief executive of this city, but I’m your brother. Your fight is my fight.” After Mamdani said he would, if elected, seek the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Adams met with Netanyahu in New York.
He did not say in the video what he intends to do after leaving office at the end of the year. But he has faced a push from some business leaders to leave and consolidate the race, raising speculation that he might find a position in the private sector.
Adams’ name — along with that of Jim Walden, another candidate who has dropped out — will remain on the ballot in November, as it is too late for it to be removed. Walden explicitly urged other flagging candidates to drop out to tilt the race against Mamdani, whom he warned had “antisemitic obsessions.”
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