New York City Mayor Eric Adams has dropped out of the Democrat primary race and will run for re-election as an independent instead, announcing the move just a day after the criminal corruption case against him was dropped.
Adams, who has been in office since 2022, shared his plans to attempt to make history as the first non-partisan candidate to win NYC mayorship since 1969 in an early morning social media post:
“I have always put New York’s people before politics and party—and I always will. I am running for mayor in the general election because our city needs independent leadership that understands working people,” he wrote, along with a six-minute video explaining his choice:
“There isn’t a liberal or conservative way to fix New York,” the mayor said in the video. “There is a right way and a wrong way and true leaders don’t just know the right path, they have the guts to take it.”
Prosecutors dropped the bribery and wire fraud charges on Adams after receiving a request to do so from the Trump administration, with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi saying that the “timing of the charges,” initially filed in September 2024, “have threatened the integrity of the proceedings, including by increasing prejudicial pretrial publicity that risks impacting potential witnesses and the jury pool.”
Pointing to Adams’ vocal resistance to former President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, Bondi said, “It cannot be ignored that Mayor Adams criticized the prior Administration’s Immigration policies before the charges were filed,” and that the case “improperly interfered” with Adams’ abilities to campaign for reelection and “to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior Administration.”
“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,” Adams said in his announcement.
Adams will need to submit 3,750 signatures from registered NYC voters by the May 27 deadline to be included on November’s general election ballot, the New York Post noted.
“But I’m not a quitter. I’m a New Yorker,” he continued. “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.”
His campaign will reportedly be focused on “public safety,” according to the Post.
The mayor has continued to claim innocence in the now-dropped case, which alleged that he exchanged favors for Turkey in return for campaign contributions that were in turn used to obtain matching campaign funds for the city.
“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,” Adams said in his video. “And let me be clear, although the charges against me were false, I trusted people I should not have and I regret that. But the issues I face are nothing compared to yours.”
“Ultimately, it will be up to you who runs this city for the next four years,” he added. “As someone who has always fought for you and who is accountable to only you, I hope I can earn your vote.”
Disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who was forced to resign in 2021 over sexual harassment allegations, is also making a run for mayor.
“I am not saying this is going to be easy. It won’t be easy, but I know we can turn the city around, and I believe I can help,” Cuomo said in a March 1 announcement.
“Did I always do everything right in my years of government service? Of course not,” he continued. “Would I do some things differently knowing what I know now — certainly. Did I make mistakes, some painfully? Definitely, and I believe I learned from them and that I am a better person for it, and I hope to show that every day.”
Other mayoral candidates pounced on Adams’ move to skip the June Democrat primary, with State Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D) writing on social media, “This isn’t leadership, this is a circus.”
State Rep. Zohran Mamdani, a member of both the Democrat Party and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), accused the mayor of abandoning the party.
“Just one day after a slimy deal from Donald Trump got his corruption charges dropped, Eric Adams has officially left the Democratic party,” he wrote on X, despite Adams stating that he is “still a Democrat” despite declining to run in their primary:
“Regardless of what party Adams flees to, New Yorkers deserve better than a self-interested, disgraced mayor who has and always will put his needs before their own,” Mamdani added.
NYC City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who has also tossed her hat in the ring for mayor, accused Adams of trying to be closer to President Donald Trump:
“This is yet another move by Eric Adams that brings him closer to Trump. New York needs a mayor who stands up to the president, not one who caves to him. I won’t let Donald Trump take over our city,” she wrote.
Before Bondi ordered the DOJ to drop the charges against Adams, Trump said he would consider pardoning him.
In a move that appeared to align him with the Trump administration, Adams praised FBI Director Kash Patel’s book as he warned of the deep state in a Wednesday interview with comedian Andrew Schultz.
When Schultz noted that Adams’ political career was on the rocks since facing charges and asked the mayor if he thought that Biden was aware of the situation, he touted Patel’s book.
“That’s a great question,” Adams replied. “You know, there are a lot of people you know this, you know, and I don’t want to sound conspiracy theory, but there’s a permanent government. There are people that see presidents and mayors come and go, their attitude is ‘we’ll wait you out.’ You know, you know what book is, a great book, man, everybody should read the book. Kash Patel’s, Government Gangsters, okay? You should. Yeah, you should read that book. Man. Kash breaks this down. He’s now the FBI director.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, D.C. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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