The Fall of Eric Adams

It was inevitable

The first time I thought very hard about Eric Adams, I was twenty-three years old. Adams was a state senator from Brooklyn running for the position of Brooklyn borough president, which has no equivalent in any other city in America. Before the 1990s, the borough presidents—one per borough, five across the city—held tangible power, casting votes on budget and land use decisions as part of the Board of Estimate, a governing body overseeing the municipal government. This system was declared unconstitutional because it gave equal weight to all the boroughs despite their vast population differences. Rather than dissolve the borough presidencies, the new city charter kept them intact under the theory that they still offered a layer of representation for city residents. While there have been successful borough presidents—earnest politicians who use the largely ceremonial position to advocate for certain worthy causes or developments—they largely preside over patronage mills. A borough president gets a large staff, a driver, and plenty of public money to spend; a borough president, in an enormous city, can operate in the shadows, with little more than diminished neighborhood newspapers watching what they do.

If there is one way to understand Eric Adams—and he is a man who tries on ideologies like bespoke suits, so I hesitate to do this—it is through the office of the borough president. Adams treated City Hall as an extension of his eight years in downtown Brooklyn, where he gave many pointless speeches, snipped many ribbons, and oversaw a dubious nonprofit. Adams never had to take governing seriously as Brooklyn borough president because there was nothing to govern. The mayor and the city council govern the city. The borough president, at best, bellows from the sidelines. When Adams became mayor in 2022, it became obvious he had no governing vision for the largest and most consequential city in the richest country on Earth. He had few genuine ideas. He blurted out curious catchphrases, brayed about the rats, and complained, often, about a press corps that wouldn’t become his propaganda organ. Pundits swooned because they didn’t know any better. Adams was someone who had been, as a state senator, nearly indicted in a bid-rigging scheme. He was a brazen, heedless operator, and it’s hard to think of a politician who spent more years in the crosshairs of various prosecutorial authorities. At some point, his luck would run out.

Adams is the first sitting mayor in New York City history to be indicted. His political career will soon end. Either he will resign, the governor will remove him from office, or he’ll stagger onward to a trial he will probably lose. Either way, he is not going to win the Democratic primary, scheduled for next June. A resignation would trigger a special election, which the political class treats as a fait accompli. I mostly agree, if I wonder if everyone is underestimating Adams’ desperation and thirst for combat. Donald Trump has not slunk away quietly, and Adams shares some commonalities with the 45th president, a fellow Queens native who grew up just a few miles from Adams’ childhood home. Adams, like Trump, will not readily surrender. Trump’s advantages are the various immunity powers he enjoyed as president and his ability to delay his trials. Adams, as a mere mayor, is subject to political gravity, and there is no cult within the Democratic Party that views his re-election in existential or apocalyptic terms. There is no chance Adams is mayor of New York City on January 1, 2026, when his second term would begin.

I don’t have very strong thoughts about the indictment itself. Paging through it, and monitoring the coverage, it all struck me as very ludicrous and petty, the alleged crimes of someone who has never thought terribly hard about next week or even tomorrow. It read as a venal and dopey smash-and-grab, favors traded for plush accommodations and extra public matching funds he could have probably secured anyway if he just fundraised like the median politician. Eric Adams was not meticulously standing up a Ponzi scheme or even finding creative ways to steal from the government. In the parlance of old Tammany Hall, this was dishonest graft, and it had little heft. Adams, in one sense, was always a machine mayor, if one presiding over desiccated outer borough Democratic organizations, and he was going to treat government as a mechanism for enriching his friends. The old Tammany machine, though, delivered durable public goods, and remained in power so long because voters understood that the graft would at least be accompanied by new railroads, bridges, and parks. Adams was Tammany absent any delivery mechanism. It was the ghost of a machine, which is perhaps the worst kind. Had Adams been more competent, he could have lasted much longer. He boasted support from the Black working class and real estate elites alike. He was a former police captain who could, at least, talk the language of reform. He had barely won the Democratic primary in 2021, but a mostly white and liberal press corps, cowed by his cynical identity appeals, was more than willing to hear him out. For eight years, journalists groused about Bill de Blasio’s trips to the Y and his tardiness and his growing disinterest in the job. The gawky de Blasio was ripe for ridicule and easy to bludgeon. Adams, his muscles rippling, would not be blasted so easy. Ironically, it was de Blasio, along with Michael Bloomberg, who backed Adams behind the scenes, believing wrongly he was fit to lead the city.

Adams will go down as the worst mayor in the city’s modern history. Accomplishments like a possible rezoning of the outer boroughs to build more housing seem like they are happening despite him, and it’s hard to know how long the city’s withered bureaucracy—this is another Adams legacy, the diminishment of public capacity—can push it forward. The functionality of government, never Adams’ priority, is deeply limited now. I heard a city councilwoman say recently that she wanted to resolve a constituent’s issue with a public school in her district. She inquired about calling the chancellor for the Department of Education. This was going to be much harder, she found out, because the FBI had seized his phone. There are, in addition to the current indictment, at least three other federal probes into the Adams administration. More indictments might come, along with resignations of top officials. Adams is already on his third police commissioner in three years.

I’ve been asked how New York elected Eric Adams. The easiest answer is he had excellent timing. When he ran in 2021, the mayoral field was unstable and relatively weak, and various candidates imploded or fell back. Andrew Yang, the celebrity former presidential candidate, was an early front-runner and took much of the media scrutiny; it didn’t help that he sounded ill-prepared to govern and never seemed care much about the intricacies of the city. Scott Stringer, another top contender, saw his campaign unravel after he was accused of sexual harassment, a charge he strenuously denied. The default progressive standard bearer, Maya Wiley, was a first-time candidate and former City Hall counsel who struggled to form a coherent message on the campaign trail. Kathryn Garcia, who nearly beat Adams, was another first-time candidate, and she never seemed terribly comfortable with the theatrics of campaigning. The backdrop of the race was rising crime and recovering from the pandemic. Adams, to his credit, understood this, and leaned into his law enforcement experience to establish credibility with the electorate. He had a message for that particular moment. By the time damaging stories reached the press—his apartment in New Jersey, and the possibility that he lived there all along—it was too late. He was on his way to victory.

Adams, the Biden of Brooklyn. Adams, the Giuliani Republican. Adams, the Farrakhan acolyte. Adams, the vegan who ate meat.

Adams, the soon to be former mayor.

There will be time to speculate on what comes next. Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor, craves a comeback, and any special election—waged over a shortened three-month timeline—would likely include him. Jumaane Williams, the public advocate who will become acting mayor if Adams resigns, must be considered a top contender, along with Cuomo. City Comptroller Brad Lander, a Williams ally, is also formidable, and any special election will help candidates with wider name recognition like Scott Stringer, who used to serve as comptroller. Two state senators, Jessica Ramos and Zellnor Myrie, are already running, and more candidates might emerge. There has not been a special election for mayor in a very long time. Or, if Adams does not resign, there will be a very crowded Democratic primary—one featuring the unprecedented indicted mayor. It is going to be a strange year.

Updated to reflect that special elections for mayor have been held before.