With supporters waving campaign signs and chanting “Four more years,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams formally launched his re-election bid on Thursday from the steps of City Hall, framing himself as a blue collar candidate with a record of achievement and his upstart chief rival, Zohran Mamdani, as an inexperienced opponent making “empty promises.”
“I’m so proud to be here to say to the people of the city of New York, I am seeking reelection to be your mayor for the city of New York,” Adams said amid loud applause from an enthusiastic group of supporters standing behind him.
The 64-year-old Adams’ first term in office was hounded by federal charges of accepting illegal gifts, including plane upgrades and hotel stays, from Turkish businessmen and officials in exchange for preferential treatment. Some Democrats also criticized Adams for meeting with Trump administration officials on immigration enforcement after federal prosecutors under the new administration dismissed the corruption charges against him.
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Adams announced in April that he was switching from being a Democrat to an independent to run in the general election.
On Tuesday, 33-year-old Mamdani, a member of the New York State Assembly and self-described Democratic socialist, declared victory in the Democratic primary, upsetting former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned from office in 2021 after a series of women accused him of sexual harassment, charges he has denied.
On Thursday, Adams only focused on his accomplishments as mayor, while casting Mamdani as someone from a privileged background whom he said has accomplished little as a state lawmaker.
“This election is a choice between a candidate with a blue collar and one with a … silver spoon, a choice between dirty fingernails and manicured nails, a choice between someone who delivered lower crime, the most jobs in history, the most new housing built in decades and an assembly member who did not pass a bill,” Adams said.
Referring to Mamdani’s campaign promises to make New York City more affordable by freezing rents on stabilized apartments, making city-run buses faster and free, creating city-run grocery stores to drive down food prices and raising the minimum wage to $30 an hour, Adams said the election poses “a choice between real progress and empty promises.”
“This election is a choice between those who believe in this city and those who don’t,” Adams said.
Adams also noted that Mamdani calls himself a Democratic socialist.
“Let me tell you something, this is a city not of socialism,” Adams said. “I’ve been to socialist countries. This is a city where you can come as a dishwasher, and you can own a chain of restaurants. This is a city where you could be a cab driver and then become a doctor. This is a city where you could go from homelessness to building housing.”
In an interview on Wednesday with ABC New York station WABC’s anchor Bill Ritter, Mamdani was asked to define being a Democratic socialist.
“I think of Dr. King, who decades ago said, ‘Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism.’ There must be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country. And it gets to the heart of the matter, which is inequality, and my belief that every New Yorker should have what they need to live a dignified life,” Mamdani said. “It shouldn’t be something that they can be priced out of. And that’s why, at the heart of our campaign is this focus on freezing the rent for more than 2 million rent-stabilized tenants, making the slowest buses in the country fast.”
Besides Mamdani, Adams will face Republican Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels crime prevention organization, in the general election in November. Cuomo said he is weighing a decision to run in the general election as an independent.
At times during his speech, Adams was interrupted by hecklers who blew whistles and one who yelled an expletive and called him a “criminal.”
“Listen, notice how we utilize the letter F,” Adams told his supporters in response to the badgering. “We utilize the letter F for faith. Our opponents use the letter F for profanity. So, we need to stay focused, no distractions and grind.”
Adams recounted his rise from a poor child raised in Brooklyn by a single mother to becoming a captain in the New York Police Department, then being elected a state senator, Brooklyn borough president and, in November 2021, the city’s 110th mayor.
Referring to his own background, Adams said, “This is a city where you could be a young person who is dyslexic, a young person who is rejected and eventually be elected to be the mayor of the city of New York.”
He added, “I wasn’t born into power and privilege; I grew up in struggle,” Adams said, apparently referring to Mamdani, whose mother, Mira Nair, is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and whose father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a Columbia University professor.
MORE: After stunning NYC mayor primary upset, Mamdani tells ABC News Democrats need to focus on economic agenda
Adams said that as mayor he helped lead New York through the pandemic and that under his leadership, violent crime in the city has fallen to historic levels. According to Adams, 500,000 new jobs have been created and affordable housing has been expanded by turning unused buildings into homes. He even boasted that Broadway just had its best 12 months in recorded history.
But in his interview with WABC, Mandami said that Adams has “exacerbated a cost-of-living crisis.”
“He raised the rent on more than 2 million New Yorkers by 9%. He increased water bills to the highest they’ve been in 13 years, and he sided with Con Edison when they wanted to increase gas and electric bills by $65 a month,” Mamdani said. “This is someone who has put his thumb on the scale against working, middle-class New Yorkers. We need someone who will actually use every tool to provide relief to those same New Yorkers.”
MORE: Timeline of how Eric Adams’ bribery case led to resignations of federal prosecutors
Mandani also said he will not shy away from battling the Trump administration’s policies that “attack the very fabric of what makes so many of us proud as New Yorkers.”
During his speech on Thursday, Adams didn’t mention Trump.
“There’s some critics who spend more time attacking than achieving,” Adams said. “Let me be clear: They have a record of tweets; I have a record on these streets — a record of results. They talk about problems, I fix them.”
