Now that Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted, his path to re-election in New York is likely to become much more difficult.
Mr. Adams is running for a second term in a competitive Democratic primary next June. Already, four prominent Democrats have entered the race, arguing that Mr. Adams is a poor manager and has not addressed the city’s affordability crisis. And even more challengers may enter the race.
So far, the field includes Brad Lander, the city’s left-leaning comptroller who recently pledged to end street homelessness for severely mentally ill people, and Scott Stringer, a former city comptroller who has focused on affordable housing and whose 2021 mayoral campaign was derailed by allegations of sexual misconduct.
There is also Zellnor Myrie, a state senator from Brooklyn who is proposing free “universal after-school” programs, and Jessica Ramos, a state senator from Queens who has focused on affordability and is friendly with unions.
Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman from Queens who is weighing entering the race, wants to stop rent increases that have taken place under Mr. Adams. And former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 after facing a series of sexual harassment allegations, is also considering running, and has focused this year on combating antisemitism.
If Mr. Adams resigns, the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, would become acting mayor and might run for the job on a permanent basis. Mr. Williams is a left-leaning former City Council member from Brooklyn who has been a fierce critic of Mr. Adams, assailing the mayor’s aggressive policing strategy.
Mr. Adams’s approval rating was already dismal before his indictment. In a Quinnipiac poll taken last December, only 28 percent of New Yorkers approved of the job he was doing — the lowest rating for any New York City mayor in a Quinnipiac survey since it began polling the city in 1996.
Mr. Adams, a former police officer who ran for mayor on a public safety messagetadhana slots, won by a slim margin in the 2021 Democratic primary. He beat his closest challenger, Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, by roughly 7,200 votes.