By Robert Hornak
Eric Adams political future is coming more into focus and the one thing we can say for sure, it’s not so bright you gotta wear shades. He did, however, get a few breaks recently that will affect his immediate future.
First was the Department of Justice ordering that the charges against him be dropped, for now, which caused a revolt in the Federal Attorney’s office for the Southern District. The prosecutors who actually put the evidence together and saw the seriousness of the crimes Adams was accused of – the most serious being using straw donors to hide large amounts of foreign money being funneled into his campaign – and didn’t take the trivializing of the charges very well.
Next was Kathy Hochul doing what most people expected, declining to remove Adams from office. Although she claims otherwise, it’s not clear that she has the power to remove Adams without clear charges that she can present to justify the removal. But more importantly, Adams is doing the dirty work that Hochul needs done, but without her fingerprints showing up,
The crisis created by illegal aliens, and in particular the criminal illegals that Trump wants to target, are a big problem for Hochul. She wants to have it both ways, to be able to talk tough about Trump, but also wants illegals committing crime removed from NY and deported.
Recent polling indicates this is a top issue, even among primary voting democrats. By looking the other way while Adams addresses this issue for her, allowing her to publicly take an anti-Trump posture, she weakens a possible primary challenge from a centrist democrat next year while simultaneously pacifying the socialists and other radicals fighting to protect these criminals.
Now the bad news for Adams. Cuomo has been dominating in all the polls for the upcoming primary, and he hasn’t even announced. The newest poll out this week shows Cuomo with 38% support among those primary voting democrats. Socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani came in 2nd with 12%, and Adams is in 3rd with 10% support (up from the 9% he received a few weeks ago).
Talk about Adams turning red and running as a republican are now over. The deadline to change party registration passed on February 14 and all five Republican Party County organizations have endorsed Curtis Sliwa. There was no interest among Party leaders to adopt Adams and all his baggage. So, Adams only path forward now is to fight in the Democratic Primary.
And fight he plans to. Adams has been telling people that he still believes he has a path to victory, albeit a very narrow path. He has no real campaign team, no donors, and apparently he will be denied public matching funds. Big labor, which almost always falls in line behind the incumbent mayor, is not behind him this time.
Cuomo, who is said to be making his run official this weekend, is about to receive the endorsement of the New York City District Council of Carpenters, which back Adams in 2021. Cuomo was also endorsed by Rep. Ritchie Torres and former NYS Comptroller Carl McCall, a former rival. This appears to be just the beginning of a slew of powerful endorsements that will have tremendous effect in the primary.
Meanwhile, Adams approval ratings in NYC are worse than Trump’s and voters overwhelmingly hold him responsible for the decline the city has experienced the last few years. His belief in a path to victory appears to be based more on irrational exuberance than on an honest examination of the current playing field.
Last year Donald Trump achieved what many have called the greatest political comeback in modern political history. Trump strongly reflected what the majority of American voters wanted, and now it appears that Andrew Cuomo reflects, at the very least, what the majority of Democrats want for their party now, a return to normalcy.
Robert Hornak is a professional political consultant who has previously served as the Deputy Director of the Republican Assembly Leader’s NYC office and as Executive Director of the Queens Republican Party. He can be reached at rahornak@gmail.com and @RobertHornak on X.
