Yo Adrienne!
The latest entrant into the NYC mayoral race
I had the pleasure of appearing on Joshua Doležal’s podcast to discuss my upcoming novel, Glass Century, and the art of fiction. You should pre-order my novel because you’ll need a good book about New York to read in the spring. And over at New York Magazine, where I write a twice a week column, I had a piece on Covid’s five-year anniversary and how the left and right both screwed up.
The Democrat who could have stopped Andrew Cuomo in his tracks is not running for mayor. Letitia James, the state attorney general, could have decided to run for mayor and blunt Cuomo rather quickly. A New York mayoral candidate who can appeal to both left-leaning white and middle-class Black voters is tough to beat. From her years of opposing Donald Trump, James is now a darling of many liberals and progressives, and she established her independence when she released reports on Cuomo’s sexual harassment and Covid scandals in 2021, triggering his eventual resignation. A former city council member and public advocate, she has deep roots in Brooklyn and close relationships with the largest labor unions that Cuomo hopes to court. It is difficult to see how Cuomo, now the vaunted polling leader in the Democratic primary for mayor, could have gotten around James.
But Cuomo got his first big break: James decided to forego a run and enjoy another few years of tangling with Trump in court. Instead, she elected—privately, for now—to support Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker, for mayor. Adrienne Adams is not related to Mayor Eric Adams, but she is the same age and did attend the same Queens public high school. Unlike Eric Adams, she remained in Queens, where she represents several middle-class, home-owning Black neighborhoods that both Cuomo and Adams covet for votes. Last week, I drove out to the Rochdale Village shopping center to watch Adrienne Adams launch her mayoral campaign and came away fairly impressed. She drew several hundred supporters, many of them locals, and had a bevy of sitting city and state legislators endorse her. Though Adrienne Adams has kept a lower public profile than prior city council speakers—once upon a time, Christine Quinn had the cover of New York Magazine—she is, on the stump, an energetic presence. I caught an undeniable charisma, and it will be interesting to see if she can make herself known enough by the June 24 primary.
Adrienne Adams’ late entry into the mayoral race is a reflection of two realities: Eric Adams is badly damaged and many Democrats, James included, are fearful that Cuomo will storm rather easily into City Hall. Had Adrienne Adams become a candidate in the fall, she would be in much better position right now. Four Democrats—Scott Stringer, Brad Lander, Zohran Mamdani, and Zellnor Myrie—have qualified for public matching funds and already have multiple millions to spend. Cuomo has his super PAC, and most assume he can raise money quickly. Adrienne Adams is in a race to meet a deadline tonight for unlocking matching funds in the spring. If she misses it, she will be at a severe disadvantage.
But if she does make the deadline—if she gets, quickly enough, on par with her rivals—does she have a chance to topple Cuomo? Is she a serious contender?