The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, announced on Friday that he is going to stay in the fall’s highly anticipated mayoral race, just days after reports that Donald Trump was encouraging him to drop out in order to help fellow independent candidate Andrew Cuomo gain more votes against the frontrunner, the Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani.
“I am running for re-election,” Adams confirmed to reporters during a news conference outside the Gracie Mansion mayoral residence.
“There has been so much speculation, communications, announcements of what I’m doing, no matter what I have stated over and over again publicly. So I want to be clear with you. I am in this race, and I’m the only one that can beat Mamdani,” Adams remarked.
The announcement came as the US president – a native of New York City – had reportedly been pushing Adams, who has been polling in the single digits, to ditch his campaign for re-election. Trump had reportedly even floated a potential ambassador post in Saudi Arabia to Adams in order to convince him to drop out.
Adams denied those claims, saying on Thursday: “I have never been promised a job.” At his renewed campaign pitch on Friday, Adams did not take questions from reporters.
He instead pointed at a mayoral polo shirt and said he intended to wear it “another four years”. He also insulted his rivals as “spoiled brats” who were not working-class New Yorkers like he and voters were.
Sources told ABC News that Trump’s team had been hearing from Republican donors in the city pleading with Trump aides to get involved in the New York City mayoral race, citing fears that Mamdani, who has had a commanding lead in polling, could win the November election.
There is a suggestion that Cuomo could consolidate enough support to challenge Mamdani if Adams – who won the 2021 race to become mayor of one of the world’s biggest cities as a Democrat – and the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, were to drop out of the race. The New York Times reported that there have been talks in the Trump administration about also finding a job for their fellow Republican Sliwa to get him out of the race.
Mamdani’s team on Friday issued a statement saying: “Zohran’s running to serve New York, not do the bidding of an authoritarian president and his billionaire friends.
“City hall should belong to the people – that’s what our city deserves and what Zohran’s campaign is all about.”
