By December 1988, New York City mayor Ed Koch was in a pickle. His approval rating hovered around 35%. Homeless advocates were marching on midtown as the city’s housing crisis worsened and Koch’s plan to forcibly hospitalize the unhoused failed miserably. The mayor had recently alienated large swathes of the city’s Democratic party by viciously attacking civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, then a candidate for president. A few months earlier, NYPD officers had publicly beaten and arrested innocent park-goers in what would be called the Tompkins Square Park Riot, prompting Koch to call the park a “cesspool” and defend his officers. The city was mired in scandal, from a Department of Finance that corruptly granted tax breaks to major real-estate developers to the arrest of dozens of city restaurant inspectors on bribery charges to the theft of millions of dollars in parking meter revenues. By the end of 1988, Koch was directly tied to many of these scandals, as an active participant in the city’s culture of patronage and favoritism.
And when Koch spoke at a town hall in Queens, a woman in the crowd yelled out a question about why all the city officials sharing the stage with him were men. Koch lost it: “Listen, I wanna tell you, you are so unfair, it’s unbelievable! … I have appointed more women to high positions than any mayor in history.… Apologize!”
Koch went on to lose the 1989 Democratic primary a few months later to David Dinkins, and by a large margin. Turnout was incredible, with over half of the city’s registered Democrats showing up at the polls. Dinkins had managed to pull together the holy trinity of NYC voters: Blacks, unions, and white liberals all broke his way. New York City had spoken loud and clear — they were sick of Ed Koch.
Right now, Eric Adams is more popular than Koch was at the time he lost, but Adams is still, on balance, unpopular. Adams’s approval rating hovers around 46%. To put that in perspective, two years before Koch lost to Dinkins, the then-mayor boasted a 50% approval rating. Adams is now two years away from his own next election, and four points below Koch. And Dinkins didn’t even announce his campaign against Koch until February of 1989, just eight months before the primary vote.
There are many parallels to draw between Koch and Adams, who is also grappling with a homelessness crisis, has a tendency to attack national Democratic leaders, and defends his police against even the worst charges of misconduct. (Google “eric adams defends police” for an index of this.) Last month, Adams’s pick to head the Department of Buildings was indicted for bribery, and six of Adams’s fundraisers are facing indictments of their own for campaign finance fraud. There is a distinct whiff of corruption in the air.
And Adams seems desperate. He’s claiming migrants will “destroy New York City.” Just last week, he went full Marie Antoinette at a press conference, claiming to be the reason New Yorkers could ride their “little bikes” and eat in their “little restaurants.” He is engaged in an increasingly hostile fight with the Democratic president of the United States, culminating in a recent cold shoulder during Biden’s visit to the city. His anti-immigrant rants are being praised in Nazi-run corners of the Internet. And New Yorkers still tell pollsters they feel scared to walk down the street.
This is all to say that, if history is any guide, it would seem that Eric Adams could easily go the same way as a previous conservative, law-and-order, loudmouth NYC mayor. He really could lose.
But is that wishful thinking from a bubble-ensconced left-winger? Maybe I needed a vibe check from some seasoned experts. So I started calling around to New York’s top political muckety-mucks to ask: If the right candidate emerged from the fog, could Eric Adams lose in the 2025 primary? And what would it take to make that happen?
The Issues
“There’s a sense that things are still out of control, migrants, homeless, all these problems … when you’re the mayor, people blame you for everything. Because the expectation is that the mayor shuts off the lights at night when you go to sleep, he turns on the lights in the morning when you wake up,” says Hank Sheinkopf, the veteran political guru who’s advised hundreds of candidates, from Bill Clinton to Mike Bloomberg. Hank was nice enough to call me back about ten seconds after I sent a message through his website. And he had a lot to say.
According to Sheinkopf, I wasn’t imagining that the mayor seemed desperate. “Adams is in the middle of a maelstrom.… He’s in a very difficult and almost untenable position. How does he get out of it alive? No one’s sure yet.” Sheinkopf calls Adams “isolated,” particularly on the migrant issue, and predicted that Kathy Hochul would soon start to beat up on Adams, more than she already has, to protect her own reelection odds in 2026.
Many voters won’t realize that 18 months really is a remarkably short tenure for a police commissioner, that maybe it speaks to some larger problems. But they will remember that Adams put a Black woman in charge, something no mayor has ever done before.
This sense — that Adams is fumbling major issues confronting New Yorkers — was echoed by Eli Valentin, a professor and political analyst who has written extensively on Latino politics in New York City. Valentin points to housing costs in New York as a major unresolved issue. On migrants, he notes that while the issue is largely federal, if it continues without improvement, “Latinos, like others, will begin to point the finger at the mayor, more so than they’re doing now.”
Others spoke to me about Adams’s lack of a central accomplishment that he could boast about to voters — the sort of moonshot that de Blasio accomplished when he introduced universal pre-K to the city (a program Adams has starved by cutting its budget by $568 million). Camille Rivera, a former de Blasio staffer and current partner at the progressive consulting firm New Deal Strategies, tells me, “[Adams] has not had a moonshot. He has an amazing opportunity here. He’s the mayor of New York City. It’s really powerful. You know, yes, bureaucracy is hard. But he runs his shop the way he runs a shop. He definitely can make moves. People listen to him. He’s the mayor.”
I heard the same thing from Christina Greer, an author, podcaster, and professor of political science at Fordham, whose research has focused on Black politics in America, and in New York in particular. “When people go to the polls, right, I think the push in the spring of 2025 will be to try and tout accomplishment. And thus far, Eric Adams doesn’t have any.”
So yeah — on the issues, Eric Adams doesn’t appear to be doing great. And that, one would think, might make him an underdog in any future election. But as we know, politics isn’t so simple. I wanted specifics — who has to vote and who has to stay home if Eric Adams is going to lose the primary to some theoretical Democrat? What has to happen in the booth?
The Voters
Everyone I talked to agreed on one thing — Adams won’t take the progressive vote. From Williamsburg to the Village, Park Slope to the Upper East Side, the left will turn out against him. But “progressives alone cannot win the mayoralty,” as Valentin succinctly puts it. A winning candidate will need to steal votes from Adams. So what votes are up for grabs?
Valentin believes the up-for-grabs group certainly includes Latino voters. “Eric Adams would not have won the primary without the Latino vote.… I think the way to this is to eat away at the coalition that got Eric Adams elected,” which includes the city’s Black population; Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in the Bronx; and outer-borough, more conservative white voters. And for Latino voters, who are more likely to be on the lower end of the economic spectrum, soaring housing costs could easily cost Adams the support he formerly enjoyed. To beat Eric Adams, Valentin says, “You would need a candidate that can eat away at one of the other members of that coalition. Could it be Latinos? Possibly.”
There’s nothing stopping concerned New Yorkers from starting their own super PAC — say, “The Committee to Stop Eric Adams” — and scaring up as much money as they are able.
Sheinkopf agrees. “The argument is, well, Latinos will turn out for him. Nobody knows what ‘Latinos’ means. You have Dominicans, Peruvians, Colombians, I mean, all these groups, because [Adams] made [Edward] Caban the police commissioner, that should be a reason for Latinos to vote for him? Not necessarily.”
Sheinkopf also points out a fascinating demographic issue that Adams faces — his supporters, on either end of the political spectrum, are leaving New York. Adams won by pulling massive numbers in the city’s Black population, especially in the broad swathes of central Brooklyn. But these voters are also rapidly being priced out of New York (the city’s Black population has fallen by 9% over the past 20 years, and the decline continues each year). “The perfect voter for him is probably a 55-year-old-plus Black woman who lives in Brooklyn or Queens, or the Bronx,” says Sheinkopf. And that voter is also likely to be feeling the economic pinch of New York City circa 2023.
On the other hand, Adams enjoyed support from white, outer-borough, conservative Democrats, who liked his police background and his vow to clean up New York. And these voters are leaving too — over 200,000 whites fled New York in 2020 and 2021. These voters are also more likely to agree that New York City is an out-of-control hellscape. Adams’s base is being chipped away from both ends.
But nobody should be fooled into thinking Adams has lost his base. At least, not yet. Rivera reminds me, “He still has a lot of support. I see it in everyday conversations with regular folks who are not too tied to political jargon.… He still definitely has support among the Black community, in my Latino communities.”
And of course, Adams doesn’t exist in a vacuum. He is a politician … and a talented one. And that is, perhaps, his biggest asset of all.
The Politics
The most important discussion I had was with Greer, who is currently working on an in-depth study of Adams and his role in historical Black politics in America, and who has clearly given him a lot of thought. Greer, let’s just say it, schooled me.
Greer doesn’t necessarily see Adams in trouble right now, and points to a few dynamics working in his favor. For one, Adams benefits from the simple fact that New Yorkers are used to a little corruption in their politics, and Adams has yet to have a singular scandal that breaks through to the masses. Greer also points to a sort of Trump Effect that surrounds Adams — there are so many little scandals, so many little stories that pop up, that it can seem as though Adams is under attack from all sides and nothing really sticks. In terms of the press, “Adam goes to the bully pulpit and says, ‘They don’t want me to succeed. I want to succeed. I want us to succeed. Look at the press — they don’t want us to succeed.’ So I think the framing of a lot of these issues is incredibly important. I think Eric Adams is very, very good at the politics part of the job.”
In that sense, every story that attacks Eric Adams — like every indictment charged against Trump — might in fact strengthen his hold over some voters. “Eric Adams goes back to the people who have supported him: ‘They pick on me, they don’t know me, they don’t know my record. This is how they pick on me.’”
Some “scandals” that get a lot of coverage in the press could also just be more inside baseball, more stuff everyday people don’t care about. Greer uses the example of former NYPD commissioner Keechant Sewell. Many voters won’t realize that 18 months really is a remarkably short tenure for a police commissioner — that maybe it speaks to some larger problems. But they will remember that Adams put a Black woman in charge, something no mayor has ever done before.
Greer puts forth a convincing case that most everybody is underestimating Adams’s political abilities. She points to the recent New York Times story about his penchant for attending flag-raising ceremonies (which could stand in for every smiling, hand-shaking event Adams attends, and there are many) as an example of how the media misunderstands what he is doing. “This story doesn’t get it. This is a story about how this man will get reelected, and you’re gonna be sitting there scratching your head wondering why. It’s like, every little tiny Bangladeshi and Trinidad community that’s never been visited before, in five boroughs has never had any mayor or elected official recognize them, because they’re not the big community or the big cultural center or whatever it is, right, they’re finally getting the attention of the mayor. You think that when it’s time to go to the polls, they’re going to forget that this mayor gave them a proclamation and citation [and told them] your community matters?”
Adams is good at politics, and as Greer points out, he went from being a beat cop to becoming the mayor of the largest city in the United States — none of us should be surprised by this. “He is charming, he has appeal, right? I try to explain it to people, just because it’s not your style in your mind, that doesn’t mean that people aren’t interested in hearing what he has to say.”
That said, Rivera did remind me that in any primary, the people who turn out are the most committed and the most connected to politics, the folks who do remember the scandals and who may not be swayed by a handshake. Whether this will hurt or help Eric Adams is something we may not know until primary day.
The Money
Any candidate who wants to take on Adams is going to need one thing: cash. Clams. Dough-re-me. And on that front, there is good news and bad news for any candidate who runs against Adams. The bad news is, fundraising will be tough, for the simple reason that for any big-money donor who wants to stay in the mayor’s favor, it’s a risk. Sheinkopf tells me, “Money people, people who will do anything to protect their positions … they tend not to contribute to insurgents. Mayors do not look kindly on insurgents, or those who support insurgents.” Most people who need to stay in the mayor’s good graces — for either political or financial reasons — are simply not going to give to an opposition candidate.
But the good news is that with public matching, that candidate wouldn’t have to raise very much. I spoke with Darren Rigger, an enthusiastic politics nerd who is also one of the city’s top professional fundraisers and a partner at the fundraising firm Dynamic SRG. Rigger explained the matching funds system to me, whereby a candidate gets an eight-to-one match by the state for every dollar they are able to raise. That would seem to make it easier for an insurgent, especially since the legal spending limit for the mayor’s race is around $8 million. All a candidate needs to do is raise around $900,000, and they have parity with Adams.
It’s hard to introduce yourself to a city of 8.5 million, and it’s even harder to make them like you more than they like a mayor they might already have voted for.
Sounds not so bad – what’s a little under a million bucks in a city overflowing with money? But this ignores that once a candidate maxes out their own campaign, they can fundraise for other politicians, or even political clubs or local groups. So Adams — who is already maxed out, years before the primary — is able to divert fundraiser money to local orgs or pols as a way to curry favor. An insurgent simply can’t match that level of fundraising power.
Or at least, most can’t. Rigger notes that political celebrities like AOC, or, to a lesser extent, Councilmember Tiffany Caban, would never have to worry about fundraising. Neither would notoriously prolific money machines like Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who became speaker in large part by fundraising for all her fellow Democrats after she maxed out her own accounts.
This also ignores the vital importance of independent orgs such as unions and super PACs, who can throw their own money and resources into a race. These groups can fundraise and spend to their hearts’ content, so long as they don’t coordinate directly with their preferred candidate. During his first primary campaign, Adams was buoyed by the so-called “Strong Leadership PAC,” which spent almost $7 million for Adams’s benefit, donated by billionaires like Mets owner Steve Cohen and hedge funder/Ron DeSantis booster/former Trump endorser Kenneth Griffin. It is safe to say that MAGA billionaires aren’t going to give to help an Adams primary opponent.
Rigger points to one group in New York that could, in theory, act as a counterweight to Adams’s fundraising strength — the Working Families Party. As a political party, the WFP is not subject to spending limits during campaigns, even if they are working for the Democrat. So they can accept massive donations, as big a check as a rich person is willing to write, then run as many ads as they want, pay for door knockers, put up billboards, do anything it takes to get a candidate elected, and none of it counts as a contribution to Adams’s opponent. This places the WFP in a tremendously important place — if they have the money.
There’s also nothing stopping concerned New Yorkers from starting their own super PAC — say, “The Committee to Stop Eric Adams” — and scaring up as much money as they are able. Rigger tells me he’s usually seen something like that succeed when an incumbent is notoriously awful, giving perennial left-wing villain Lauren Boebert as an example. Whether Adams is New York City’s version of the GOP congresswoman is up to the donors. The reason these sorts of PACs are tough is because of the simple reason that donors want to shake a hand. They want to know someone is going to thank them for their money. And nameless, faceless PACs usually can’t offer that, unless some big-money person or celebrity is willing to lend their name to it.
Rigger’s advice to potential candidates? “Go big or go home. Ankle biting won’t get you anywhere in American politics. Either you’re running or you’re not running. And if you’re running, you do a massive blast email to everyone. And you time it with social media. And you say to everyone, “I’m running, this is why I’m running, this is how you can help.” And if that initial email and your immediate follow-up don’t net you at least 1,000 contributors and $250,000 in matched funds, you’re in trouble.
The Candidate
I deliberately didn’t ask any of my interviewees who they thought might be a good candidate to take Adams on — I was more interested in the dynamics at play. But everyone I spoke to who offered up an opinion on the generic ideal candidate said the same thing: It cannot be a white person. A white candidate won’t be able to cut into Adams’s base, won’t be able to excite the vital Latino and Asian voting blocs, and, frankly, would feel a little bit like a throwback in this modern, diverse city, especially when going up against a Black mayor.
A prolific fundraiser or political celebrity would start with an immediate leg up — it’s hard to introduce yourself to a city of 8.5 million, and it’s even harder to make them like you more than they like a mayor they might already have voted for. A politician with deep ties to labor — of which the city’s progressive movement can boast several, including State Senator Jessica Ramos and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso — would also have an advantage, as NYC’s unions are absolute powerhouses during elections.
It’s important to remember that Adams didn’t win in a blow-out — both Maya Wiley and Kathryn Garcia came very close. Adams ultimately beat Garcia by less than one percentage point in the last round of ranked choice. There is every reason to think that in a one-on-one race, Adams could go down, and badly.
But that requires someone to step up. When Sheinkopf tells me nobody knows if Adams will get out of all the trouble he’s in, he adds one caveat: “What gets him through it, is if no one shows up to the shootout.” ❖
John Teufel is an attorney and freelance writer. His work has been featured in StreetsBlog, The Indypendent, City & State NY, City Limits, and other publications. He successfully sued the city of New York over police disciplinary records, resulting in those records being made public for the first time. He is on Twitter at @JohnTeufelNYC.