By James Oliphant
(Reuters) -New York City Mayor Eric Adams dropped his re-election bid on Sunday, leaving the race to become the city’s next mayor likely between Democrat Zohran Mamdani and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Adams had been trailing far behind Mamdani and Cuomo, who is running as an independent, according to public opinion polls, with Mamdani holding a sizeable lead ahead of the November 4 election. Adams had been struggling to raise money.
“Despite all we’ve achieved, I cannot continue my reelection campaign,” Adams said in a post on X.
Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, has alarmed much of the New York business community and some within the Democratic Party with his leftist views.
The fear among Mamdani’s critics had been that Adams and Cuomo would split the opposition vote, giving Mamdani an easy victory.
Adams said he will finish his term, which ends on January 1, 2026. “I will continue to fight for this city,” he said.
The former New York City police officer has had a brutally unpopular tenure as the leader of America’s largest city, which is heavily Democratic. Recent polls had support for his re-election in the single digits along with Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.
President Donald Trump, a Republican who has warned about the consequences of a Mamdani win, earlier this month suggested that Adams pull out of the race even as the mayor swore he would remain until the end.
Adams appeared to swipe at Mamdani in his remarks on Sunday.
“Major change is welcome and necessary, but beware of those who claim the answer to destroy the very system we built together over generations,” Adams said. “That is not change, that is chaos.”
(Reporting by James Oliphant; Additional reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Will Dunham and Alistair Bell)
