Boost for Zohran Mamdani? Incumbent Eric Adams drops out of New York City mayor race, here's why

officeholder young house of york urban center city manager Eric Adams has dropped out of election scheduled for November, setting up a direct fight between Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani and former mayor Andrew Cuomo.

A formal Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa is in the race too, but former governor Andrew Cuomo — contesting as an independent after losing the Democratic ticket race to Mamdani — is now the main challenger to the young leader of Indian-Ugandan origin. Eric Adams was also planning to file an independent nomination.

Leading the opinion polls, Zohran Mamdani, 33, has invited President Donald Trump's wrath as the Republican strongman sees him as a problematic "communist".

While some analysed Eric Adams' expected dropout as a possible consolidation of Democratic votes for Mamdani, the NY Post report said this could be to clear the field to stop Mamdani by putting all of Trump's strength behind Cuomo or, less likely, Curtis Sliwa.

“It’s been an honor to be your mayor,” Adams said in a video announcement, as per NY Post. “I know I cannot continue my campaign… I strongly encourage who ever takes over City Hall to continue what we’ve done.”

He did not endorse any of the other candidates, and even took subtle swipes at both Mamdani and Cuomo, all of them essentially on the same, Democrat side of the political binary in the US.

“I want to be clear, although this is the end of my campaign, this will not be the end of my public service,” he said, “I will keep fighting for our city no matter what because I am a New Yorker.”

Andrew Cuomo earlier blasted Zohran Mamdani’s candidacy as “abhorrent” and termed the contest a “battle for the soul” of the Democratic party. “This is a civil war within the Democratic party where the extreme left is pulling the Democratic party and the moderates are afraid,” Cuomo said on Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

“The Democratic Party is not anti-business, it’s not anti-police. That’s not who we are,” he said, implying Mamdani is all of those things, something Mamdani has consistently denied.

Cuomo, 67, has been polling in second place behind Mamdani.

As governor, he led New York through the Covid-19 pandemic. He slammed Mamdani, a Queens assemblyman, as inexperienced. “You wake up any morning, you could have a terrorist attack, you could have another COVID,” Cuomo said.

A Suffolk University CityView poll released last week showed Mamdani leading Cuomo by 20 percentage points. The former governor lost to Mamdani by more than 12 points in the primary election.

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