New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Thursday that he will seek re-election, but not as a Democrat.
Adams announced his plans in a video on X that was released one day after corruption charges filed against him by the Biden-era Department of Justice, which were not pursued by the Trump administration, were formally dropped, as noted by The New York Times.
The June Democratic primary includes at least nine candidates, including former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, according to The Washington Post.
In his video on X, Adams said the charges against him made it necessary to take an uncharted course for re-election.
“More than 25,000 New Yorkers signed my Democratic primary petition, but the dismissal of the bogus case against me dragged on too long, making it impossible to mount a primary campaign while these false accusations were held over me,” he said.
“But I’m not a quitter. I’m a New Yorker,” he said.
“And that is why today, although I am still a Democrat, I am announcing that I will forgo the Democratic primary for mayor and appeal directly to all New Yorkers as an independent candidate in the general election,” he said.
— Eric Adams (@ericadamsfornyc) April 3, 2025
Will Eric Adams be re-elected mayor?
Adams said he can deliver what New York City needs.
“I firmly believe that this city is better served by truly independent leadership, not leaders pulled at by the extremists on the far left or the far right, but instead those rooted in the common middle — the place where the vast majority of New Yorkers are firmly planted,” Adams said.
“I know that the accusations leveled against me may have shaken your confidence in me and that you may rightly have questions about my conduct,” he said. “Let me be clear, although the charges against me were false, I trusted people I should not have, and I regret that.”
Adams has said in the past that he is not in the mold of a traditional New York City liberal Democrat.
“People often say, ‘You don’t sound like a Democrat. You seem to have left the party,’” Adams told Tucker Carlson, in January, according to The New York Times. “No, the party left me, and it left working-class people.”
“I’m in the race to the end. I’m not running on the Democratic line. It’s just not realistic to turn around my numbers and to run a good campaign (from) where we are right now,” Adams said, according to Politico.
Adams has already come out swinging against Cuomo.
“Look at bail reform — that’s Andrew,” Adams said. “He can’t say, ‘I’m going to save the city from the far left’ when he surrendered to the far left.”
Cuomo has defended the practice of releasing suspects without requiring bail.
“Bail reform righted a terrible social wrong. We were putting people in Rikers, in jail, who hadn’t been found guilty of anything, just because they couldn’t make bail,” he said. “It shouldn’t be that because you’re wealthy, then you can make bail and you’re released, but if you can’t make bail, then you stay in jail even though you haven’t been found guilty of anything yet.”
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