The Clash for the Big Apple Heats Up

While off-year elections tend to get significantly less coverage and generally have lower turnout, this year’s New York City mayoral contest may be the exception to that rule. The race for the prized position of becoming mayor of America’s most populous city has become one of the most contentious and critical elections of this cycle.

The most significant development in the race so far came in April when incumbent Mayor Eric Adams announced that he would be opting out of the Democrat Party primary. Instead, he is running for re-election as an Independent – putting him directly at odds with his former party.

Adams’ decision to skip the Democrat primary and run as an Independent came after a flood of calls from fellow Democrats demanding that he resign or be forced out of office following charges of corruption from the Biden FBI and the New York City Department of Investigation. As AMAC Newsline reported earlier this year, prosecutors alleged that Adams accepted more than $100,000 in bribes from Turkish officials and businessmen.

However, the mayor alleges that the charges were politically motivated – and he may have a point. Adams, a former police officer who ran on a relatively moderate law-and-order platform in 2021, notably broke with his party on support for “Defund the Police” and illegal immigration. Adams was vocally critical of the Biden administration’s border policies, sitting for an interview with Tucker Carlson in which he said the situation in New York City was “terrible” and alleged Biden aides told him he “wasn’t a good Democrat.”

During that same interview, Adams also committed the cardinal sin in the eyes of the progressive left: stating his desire to work with Donald Trump. “As I told everyone, I’m not here to be warring with the president,” Adams said. “I’m here to work with the president… you can’t spend the next four years fighting; we need to spend the next four years listening to the American people.”

It wasn’t long after Adams broke with his party’s far-left flank that prosecutors rolled out the corruption charges. In April, a judge dismissed the case following a request from the Trump Department of Justice.

However, despite Adams’ apparent vindication, the corruption accusations have taken a toll on the mayor’s popularity. In March, his approval rating dropped to an all-time low of 20 percent, and 56 percent of voters said he should resign.

But as intriguing as Adams’ Independent re-election bid has been so far, that storyline has in large part taken a back seat to the real political shocker of the race – the sudden resurgence of disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

In 2020, Cuomo’s political star was soaring as he became a fixture on cable news networks amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Liberal pundits gushed about his playful interactions with his brother, then-CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. He became the poster child for liberal “resistance” to Trump’s supposedly “anti-science” policies. He was even getting some mentions as a presidential contender.

But it would all come crashing down for Andrew Cuomo just one year later. Congressional investigations revealed that Cuomo forced nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients, and that his office understated COVID-related nursing home deaths by as much as 80 percent. Then, an investigative report from New York Attorney General Letitia James concluded that the governor had sexually harassed multiple women during his tenure. Despite denying the accusations, Cuomo resigned in August 2021 amid an impeachment inquiry.

On the surface, Cuomo seems to have everything working against him. He is an older white man in a party that claims to value diversity above all else. In one of the most liberal states in the country that was a cradle of the #MeToo movement a decade ago, Cuomo was forced out of office over credible accusations of sexual harassment.

Yet according to a SurveyUSA poll out last month, Cuomo has a commanding primary lead in a crowded field of 11 candidates. Among 1,050 likely Democrat primary voters, Cuomo was the first choice for 43 percent (New York City uses ranked choice voting for primary and special elections).

With the primary election coming up on June 24, Cuomo may easily cruise to the nomination. His biggest competition looks to be New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani, who was the first choice of 11 percent of respondents in the SurveyUSA poll. Mamdani recently made a splash in the race by committing to freeze rents on the city’s one million rent-regulated apartments – a move that housing experts say would be disastrous for living conditions in the city.

When it comes to the key issues of this election cycle, voters have made it clear that they are concerned about public safety, homelessness, economic opportunities, and illegal immigration. Recent polling from the Manhattan Institute showed that crime and public safety were by far the most pressing concerns for New Yorkers (identified as a top concern by 49 percent of respondents), followed by housing costs (29 percent), jobs and the economy (28 percent) and migrants and migration (22 percent).

Adams’ tenure as mayor leaves much to be desired on almost all of these fronts. A report conducted by the New York State Comptroller revealed that the homelessness population in New York City has doubled over the past two years. New York City’s crime rate has also continued to spike, with a 146.5 percent increase in felony assaults by repeat offenders, as well as an increase in murder and rape cases, and the city’s economy is continuing to struggle.

Right now, it looks like Cuomo’s race to lose. He has a significant funding advantage over any other candidate and is widely known throughout the city as a former governor.

However, if Adams can recover and mount a strong campaign before November, it may divide the Democrat vote and perhaps open up a lane for a dark horse candidate – namely Curtis Sliwa, who is running unopposed in the Republican Party primary.

Sliwa, a talk show host and the founder of Guardian Angels, a nonprofit crime prevention program, was the Republican nominee in 2021, when he lost to Adams 67 percent to 28 percent. His campaign believes this time could be different in a three-way race if he can peel off more moderate Democrats than he did four years ago.

Regardless of the outcome, the race is shaping up to be one of the most captivating mayoral contests in recent memory. After years of empty promises from liberal politicians, and with conditions in the city continuing to worsen, will voters finally demand a change?

Early signs indicate the answer is still no. But with six months to go, anything is possible.

Hunter Oswald is a Research Fellow for The American Spectator. He is an alum of Grove City College, where he graduated Cum Laude with a B.A. in Political Science. You can follow him on X @HunterOswald8.