Eric Adams’ downfall is a cautionary tale of wasted opportunities
New York mayor Eric Adams finally ended his campaign for re-election last week. He partly blamed his failure on the New York City Campaign Finance Board, which refused to match public funds for his campaign on the grounds that he had not submitted required paperwork and that members of the board have reason to believe that he has violated the law – claims that the mayor denies. But it is doubtful that Adams could have mounted a credible campaign, even with the cash. By the time he quit, polls placed him in fourth, behind not only the Democratic frontrunner, Zohran Mamdani, and former New York governor Andrew Cuomo but also Curtis Sliwa, a street vigilante widely regarded as a novelty candidate.
Adams’ tenure as mayor was not without achievement. But none of his accomplishments were notable enough to counterbalance the effect of his personal style and conduct. As his mayoralty progressed, Adams’ eccentricity drifted into unravelling malfeasance severe enough to ensure that it will be the main thing for which he is remembered. He will leave office with a tainted legacy, having been charged by a federal court with bribery, campaign finance and conspiracy offences. In what has been alleged was a quid pro quo with the Trump administration, Adams managed to have the charges dropped, apparently in return for enforcing the US president’s immigration policies. In the eyes of many New Yorkers, such obsequious pandering to Trump was as damaging as any conviction. As his first and only term draws to a close, his approval rating of 20 per cent is the lowest recorded for a New York mayor since 1996.
Four years ago, Adams emerged victorious from an unusually progressive Democratic primary field by positioning himself as a moderate. As a former NYPD officer serving as Brooklyn Borough president, he championed a measured, incremental approach to police reform, a sharp contrast with progressive calls to “defund” law enforcement. He was able to build a coalition of wealthy and low-income New Yorkers sceptical of the idea that cutting resources would meaningfully curb police misconduct.
But from the beginning, Adams was dogged by accusations of corruption. His political appointments were glaringly unsuitable: allies implicated in bribery scandals and his brother installed in a high-paying security role. Even as serious concerns mounted, Adams continued to behave in ways that bewildered onlookers. He snapped at a reporter who asked why he had fish in his refrigerator despite repeated claims that he was vegan. He staged a glitzy rollout for a completely ordinary New York-branded rubbish bin, billing it as a “trash revolution”. He posed for photos with an NYPD patrol robot, attempting “heart hands” with the armless machine.
Some observers once believed that Adams was charting a course out of the progressive spasms that had convulsed the Democratic Party since Donald Trump’s first term, back toward a conventional centrism. That forecast now seems profoundly misguided. All momentum has shifted to Mamdani, whose campaign emphasises the interests of low-income New Yorkers more powerfully than any mayoral candidate in generations. Despite his ambitious, even radical, goals, Mamdani seems a far more serious figure than Adams ever did – the intensity of both the support and opposition that he inspires testifies to this. Adams’ legacy is a warning of how far an ostensibly sensible platform can be hollowed out by silliness, self-interest and cant.
Henry Rees-Sheridan is a Monocle contributor based in New York. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
