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New York City Mayor Eric Adams launched his re-election campaign on Thursday by attacking Zohran Mamdani, the progressive upstart who delivered an upset in defeating favorite Andrew Cuomo in this week’s Democratic primary vote.
Mamdani, 33, a state assemblyman who centred his campaign around making the Big Apple a more affordable place to live, looks all but certain to secure his party’s nomination when ballot counting concludes on July 1.
But Adams – the 64-year-old incumbent who is seeking a second term as an independent on a law-and-order platform after Donald Trump’s Justice Department dismissed corruption charges against him in April – has sought to cast the race as a battle between experience and privilege.
“This is a choice between a candidate with a blue collar and one with a silver spoon,” he said, alluding to Mamdani as he stood on the steps of City Hall, attempting to project the power of his office.
“A choice between dirty fingernails and manicured nails. It is a choice between someone who’s delivered lower crime, the most jobs in history, the most new housing built in decades than an assembly member who did not pass a bill.”
Mamdani has, in fact, sponsored three bills that went on to be signed into law, contrary to the mayor’s claim.
Adams’s address saw supporters and protesters attend and drown each other out with chanting, with the mayor reacting angrily to activists calling him a “f***ing criminal” for selling out to Trump by telling them: “We utilize the letter F for faith, our opponents use the letter F for profanity.”
Responding to Adams’s attacks on his supposed inexperience, Mamdani said in a statement: “When we launched this campaign, we did so to defeat Eric Adams’ second term.
“New Yorkers have been suffocated by a cost of living crisis and this mayor has taken almost every opportunity to exacerbate it, all while partnering with Donald Trump to tear our city apart.”
Assuming Mamdani secures the nomination, he and Adams are likely to find themselves in a three-horse race with Republican Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels anti-crime group. However, Cuomo has signalled that he could run again, like Adams, as an independent.
Adams, the son of a cleaner and a police captain who later became a state senator and Brooklyn’s borough president, presents himself as a champion of working-class New York. He advocates public safety and an upbeat, self-believing attitude he calls “swagger,” which he credits for his rise to become the second Black mayor of the nation’s most populous city.
Adams has complained that the long-running corruption saga surrounding him has prevented him from campaigning and fundraising until now.
Mamdani is the son of an award-winning Indian filmmaker and an anthropology professor at Columbia University. He graduated from a private liberal arts college and worked as a foreclosure prevention counselor before first being elected to the New York Assembly in 2020.
Despite his short resume, the democratic socialist picked up significant momentum in the primary thanks to an energetic, positive campaign that made inventive use of social media.
After watching Mamadani’s commanding win on Tuesday, which forced Cuomo’s shock concession, Adams wrote on social media: “The fight for New York’s future begins tonight.”
The young Democrat’s pledge to raise taxes on the city’s wealthiest one percent is likely to turn the city’s business leaders against him, which could create a window of opportunity for Adams if they throw their support behind him as a means of blocking Mamdani’s path to Gracie Mansion.
Republican billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman has already taken to X to offer “hundreds of millions of dollars” in donations to a Mamdani challenger.
“There are hundreds of millions of dollars of capital available to back a competitor to Mamdani that can be put together overnight (believe me, I am in the text strings and the WhatsApp groups) so that a great alternative candidate won't spend any time raising funds,” Ackman said.
“So, if the right candidate would raise his or her hand tomorrow, the funds will pour in. I am sure that Mike Bloomberg will share his how-to-win-the-mayoralty IP and deliver his entire election apparatus and system to the aspiring candidate so that the candidate can focus all of his or her energy on the campaign.”
Even the conservatives could not resist applauding Mamdani’s “superb” campaign, but insisted: “His policies would be disastrous for NYC. Socialism has no place in the economic capital of our country.
“The ability for NYC to offer services for the poor and needy, let alone the average New Yorker, is entirely dependent on NYC being a business-friendly environment and a place where wealthy residents are willing to spend 183 days and assume the associated tax burden.
“Unfortunately, both have already started making arrangements for the exits.”
