Eric Adams Drops Out of N.Y.C. Mayoral Race

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is ending his reelection campaign in the crowded 2025 mayoral race.

On Sunday, Sept. 28 — after weeks of speculation about whether President Donald Trump would intervene in the N.Y.C. election — Adams, 65, announced that he would no longer seek another term as mayor.

“Although our successes… I know I cannot continue my campaign,” he said in a video message posted to social media. “It’s been an honor to be your mayor… I strongly encourage whoever takes over City Hall to continue what we’ve done.”

The move serves to strengthen former Gov. Andrew Cuomo‘s third-party campaign, which has become increasingly conservative since he lost the Democratic primary in June, so that he has better odds of defeating Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, who currently holds a commanding lead among the pack.

Adams stopped short of endorsing Mamdani, Cuomo or Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, instead issuing a warning to voters about radical ideals and flip-flopping candidates.

“I want to be clear, although this is the end of my campaign, this will not be the end of my public service,” he continued in the clip. “I will keep fighting for our city no matter what because I am a New Yorker.”

Adams, a registered Democrat, has stoked controversy numerous times since becoming mayor in 2022. Following a series of raids and investigations, as well as high-profile resignations, in the Adams administration, the mayor himself was charged with five criminal counts in September related to his alleged ties with foreign businessmen and a Turkish official who sought to influence his decision-making, according to a federal indictment.

Despite the corruption charges, Adams refused to resign and even insisted that he would seek reelection on an independent line of the ballot, which allowed him to bypass the Democratic primary race.

After Trump took office, the Justice Department dismissed Adams’ charges.

During a typical election year in deep-blue New York City, the candidate who wins the Democratic primary handily wins the general election in November. The 2025 mayoral race thus far has been an anomaly.

Though 33-year-old Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, beat Cuomo for the Democratic nomination in a stunning landslide earlier this summer, the embattled former governor remained in the race by joining the ballot on a third-party line. Adams, the incumbent mayor, was also running as an independent, threatening to split the Democratic vote three ways.

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With Cuomo, Adams, Sliwa all in the race, Mamdani maintained a comfortable lead in the polls. The only scenario where Mamdani would lose, according to polling data from earlier this month, is in a two-way race between himself and Cuomo.

In an effort to keep Mamdani’s progressive policy ideas — including free public buses, rent freezes for subsidized units, city-operated grocery stores and universal childcare — away from city hall, Republicans and moderate Democrats alike have put considerable pressure on Adams and Sliwa to drop out and clear the field for Cuomo to win.

The Trump administration, which plans to continue its aggressive immigration raids in major U.S. cities, would find itself in an especially tough position with a Mayor Mamdani, given his campaign promise to “stop masked ICE agents from deporting our neighbors.”

When asked in July what he would do if Mamdani intervened with his deportation efforts as mayor, Trump said, “Well then, we’ll have to arrest him.”

Cuomo — himself a controversial figure after resigning the governor’s seat in disgrace in 2021 — vowed just three months ago that, if elected, he would leverage his power to fight back against Trump.

“I would spend eight years in Washington — go to that U.S. Conference of Mayors, go to the National Governors Association,” Cuomo, 67, said in June. “He’s cutting Medicaid. Medicaid is not a blue-city, blue-state situation. That is in every state. That is a lot of red congressional districts. And he could lose the House on cutting Medicaid if you organized it and got it moving.”

His comments came shortly after The New York Times reported in May that Trump’s DOJ had opened an investigation into Cuomo over whether he lied under oath about how he handled COVID-19 as New York’s governor.

Once Cuomo lost the Democratic nomination and became the underdog in the race, the situation between him and Trump seemingly shifted.

In August, The New York Times reported that Trump had been asking around about which mayoral candidate had the best chance of defeating Mamdani. After multiple people informed him that Cuomo was the best option, Trump allegedly spoke with Cuomo on the phone, according to the Times‘ sources.

The outlet noted that it was “unclear” who initiated the call or what exactly was discussed. Cuomo’s spokesperson told the Times that the former governor hadn’t spoken to Trump in “a while,” adding, “As far as I know, they have not discussed the race.”