The rumors swirling around the political future of New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) have taken the state and country by storm. What initially began as a high-profile corruption case – Adams is the first NYC Mayor to be charged with federal crimes while in office – the case has taken a series of twists and turns, with Governor Hochul (D) mulling the causes and effects of deposing Adams, as well as the apparent fraternizing with the Trump Administration regarding immigration enforcement.
Elected in 2021 after the disastrous terms of Bill de Blasio (D), Eric Adams easily defeated Guardian Angel Curtis Sliwa (R), calling himself the “future of the Democratic Party.” Any candidate who would fill the open mayoral seat that year would have a mandate to put the city back on track in terms of improving public safety and police-public relations, as well as help stem the outmigration problem that has turned New York’s budget and local economies on their heads.
Instead, Adams has produced the lowest approval ratings for an NYC Mayor since the Associated Press began such polling in 1996, clocking in at just 26% in the final quarter of 2024.
But Adams’ slide in popularity isn’t recent, nor is it self-contained. In the wake of the criminal indictments, which allege he accepted gifts and bribes from the Turkish government, a Quinnipiac poll found Adams with a 28% approval rating.
Even with the lapse of a year in between the polls, they produce strikingly similar results: nearly two-thirds of the city – and a roughly equal number of Democrats – believe Adams should resign. Marist’s 2024 poll found that 69% of NYC residents and 71% of Democrats believe he should resign, with 30% believing he should serve the rest of his term. The poll also found that residents believe by a margin of 63%-36% that Hochul should remove Adams from his position, a broad power vested to the executive within the New York State Constitution.
But one statistic gives him a near-zero chance of winning a primary, let alone the 2025 general election: according to Marist, only 18% of NYC residents think he should run for re-election.
So much for being the “future of the Democratic Party.”
But this isn’t an indictment on Adams as much as it is the complex political calculus facing New York, particularly New York City.
For starters, New York’s monumental shift to the right in the 2024 presidential race was the single-largest swing for any state in the nation, with the formula coming down to a massive enthusiasm gap. Kamala Harris (D-CA) failed to retrieve 625,000 votes that Joe Biden (D-DE) did in 2020, while Donald Trump (R-FL) added almost 330,000 to his fold. The end result was Harris becoming the first Democrat to win New York by a margin of less than one million votes since 1988.
That swing was mostly produced by New York City, with all five boroughs taking unprecedented double-digit swings to the right.
Such change in an institutionally Democratic area is cause for concern, especially since it’s not relegated to just one fluke election. Then-Congressman now-EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) produced staggering numbers in New York City that Trump actually improved upon in a completely separate type of election.
The city has also proven to make the immediate bedroom communities ground zero for a more competitive New York, with Nassau County and North Jersey also finding themselves in such massive rightward swings in relatively short periods of time. NYC proper, southern Brooklyn in particular, was also responsible for the GOP cracking Democrats’ supermajority in the State Senate last year.
Ironically, it seems that New York City could be Republicans’ friend in flipping New York, rather than the insurmountable obstacle it has been for them for decades. And with all or most of the calculus lying on the Big Apple, it is in Democrats’ best interests to navigate this situation deftly so as to preserve their political prospects.
The second part of the equation comes from the fact that Hochul is obviously floundering going into 2026. We’re comfortable classifying her as a slight underdog, but it won’t be a cakewalk for Republicans either – that is, unless Zeldin decides to make another run for governor.
Hochul entered Election Day 2024 with a lower net favorability rating than Donald Trump in New York, although he was also underwater. His net approval rating, while still negative, is the highest it’s been in New York State since he began his political career, according to the Siena College. Correlation doesn’t always equal causation, especially when comparing one election year to another, but those trends are highly notable in a state that’s been more like Fort Knox to Republicans than most others.
Hochul will also likely face a primary from outspoken Congressman Ritchie Torres (D, NY-16), while former Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D, NY-16) has publicly expressed interest. While Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado (D) dismissed rumors of trying to primary his boss, his recent departure from the 2026 lieutenant governor’s race makes us wonder if he’ll throw his hat in the ring after all. Primarying a direct superior is often a terrible political move with massive ramifications.
But two weeks ago, Delgado called on Adams to resign, the first such endorsement from the executive branch, leading to a Hochul spokesperson definitively stating that Adams does not speak for the governor.
These little internal disputes might be indicative of a much larger problem, posing the question, who is the Democratic standard bearer in New York and is there a political power vacuum looming?
Enter former Governor Andrew Cuomo (D), who served from 2011 until his abrupt resignation amid sexual assault allegations in 2021. Cuomo is now running for NYC mayor, hoping to stage his own political comeback, despite the U.S. House admonishing him for his deliberate cover-up of the nursing home deaths during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
In our opinion, Cuomo should not be mayor of New York; he should be in prison.
But that aside, Cuomo has a massive coalition in New York, particularly in the city, mostly of laborers, black voters, and working-class Italians. Cuomo might have significant baggage, but to many voters, he’s someone with whom they’ve identified for years. Old school Democrats who are fatigued of Trump might just throw their support behind in light of the scandals, while progressives will likely feel politically homeless.
As of now, it’s our opinion that Cuomo has the best chances of the declared or prospective candidates of not only winning a primary, but winning the general election. This, of course, depends on just how pervasive the COVID-19 scandal is on the mind’s of NYC voters, as well as the possibility of an enthusiasm gap that brought New York closer to a single-digit race for the first time in generations.
Where NYC’s grid-like infrastructure morphs into grids on a chess board comes in two parts: Adams’ possible new-found ally in Donald Trump and the political future of New York City, and Cuomo’s own political prospects relative to his former number-two in Kathy Hochul.
When Adams was indicted last year, we wrote that Trump predicted, pretty much an exact year prior, that if Adams bucked his party on immigration, he would be indicted.
Right now, Attorney General Pam Bondi (R-FL) is asking New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) to essentially can the Adams investigation, about which James, according to her, was aware for the last three years, which, along with the aforementioned Trump prediction, leads us to believe the criminal allegations were kept in James’ and company’s back pocket for political expediency.
Now appears to be that time.
This isn’t a defense of Adams; we think he has no business being mayor, but if charges are charges, why weren’t they brought when it came to the attention of the attorney general?
Meanwhile, Adams not only has the governmental fate of the city on his shoulders, but more so the political fate.
At this point, even without Cuomo on the ballot, Adams is effectively guaranteed to lose the Democratic Primary. Multiple notable progressives have joined the race, with State Senator Zellnor Myrie (D-Prospect Lefferts Gardens) considered a heavy frontrunner.
If Hochul does not depose Adams, it turns into a zero-sum game, wherein Adams is virtually guaranteed to be denied a second term – either by virtue of the primary or general – so a possible move on his part would be to run as an Independent.
Not only would this be a spite move fitting for sectional politics, but it would likely confirm he sees more of an ally in Trump than he does in his current caucus. An Independent Adams, even with a Cuomo candidacy, presents the real chance that a Republican could win the election vis-a-vis vote splitting.
This isn’t open-and-shut, rather just a distinct possibility. Cuomo could win a three-way race on a ticket that includes an Independent Adams, specifically if he can win more of the progressives and minority communities.
Otherwise, Republicans might be boxed out of winning the mayoralty in a two-way race. Even with the shifts we’ve seen in the last two statewide elections here, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx are heavily Democratic, with Queens not far behind at a roughly 60%-40% split. The latter statistic is proof of concept of a more competitive New York city and state overall.
But is that a risk Democrats want to run?
To avoid this, it makes strategic sense for Hochul to depose Adams, thereby allowing New York City Public Advocate Jumanne Williams (D) – who ran to primary Hochul in 2022 – serving as acting mayor until a special election is held after Adams’ resignation or deposition. Democrats could nominate a new candidate and likely cakewalk November.
But will Hochul help produce, either directly or indirectly, a scenario that produces a Mayor Cuomo? Her former boss kept her in the dark for his entire governorship and even considered replacing her with an NYC progressive in 2018. Cuomo’s lack of action in public works, his sexual assault allegations, known “bully” personality, and the damning control freak behavior exercised during COVID makes him a political liability.
There’s also no telling how much of a partner Cuomo will be to Hochul, or vice versa, should political strain be more present than political gain.
Either way, the rightward shift in New York doesn’t appear to be slowing, and if both Hochul and Cuomo, should he be elected mayor, continue to govern as has been tradition the last several years, they’ll only do more to push the state more to the center, up and down the ballot.
If Cuomo tries governing like a moderate, even potentially working with Trump, who’s to say he won’t suffer the same fate as Adams? The mob boss-like power Cuomo has will be tested in such a scenario.
The political vacuum in New York seems very real, as any moves Democrats make either imperils their immediate political prospects or goes against their own personal spite for another.
One thing, however, is for sure: Cuomo belongs in a prison cell long before he’ll ever belong at Gracie Mansion.
