Politics

JUST IN: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Ditches Democrat Party

Published

5 days ago

April 3, 2025

New York Mayor Eric Adams is a free man, and he’s flexing his muscle by unenrolling from the Democratic Party ahead of his reelection campaign.

The moderate mayor and former police officer has shed his party label and will now run for a second four-year term as a registered independent, he revealed Thursday morning. The change comes after Adams briefly flirted with the idea of running for office as a Republican, a nearly unthinkable prospect in the sapphire-blue metropolis.

In an interview announcing his decision, Adams said the change would allow him to “mount a real independent campaign” that relies on a “a solid base of people” outside Manhattan, emphasizing his connection to minority voting blocs that have grown more ambivalent about the Democratic Party.

“I have been this racehorse that has been held back,” he told Politico. “This is so unnatural for me.”

Adams is interminably tied to President Donald Trump following the U.S. Justice Department relinquishing its corruption charges against him, and his decision to seek reelection with that designation will almost certainly make the New York mayoral race a marquee in 2025.

Had he stayed in the Democratic Party, Adams would be forced to contend with a bitter primary against disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who is leading in early polls.

“I’m in the race to the end. I’m not running on the Democratic line. It’s just not realistic to turn around my numbers and to run a good campaign (from) where we are right now,” he told the outlet. “It hurts like hell.”

Dropping his party label offers Adams additional months to connect with the city’s growing base of independent voters, and his fundraising team will “go to court if need be and fight for our matching funds.” The process of public financing for political campaigns is controlled by the city’s Campaign Finance Board and is all but essential for competing in its expensive media market.

“Now I need this runway until November to redefine and remind people: This is why you elected me in the first place,” he said.

Instead, he hopes to project the image that was always underneath his partisan vestige: a former New York cop and working-class kid who doesn’t fit neatly along ideological lines.

“My life story is what is my most potent weapon,” he said.

New York City is home to 3.3 million registered Democrats, 1.1 million independents and 558,778 Republicans. It almost always elects a Democratic mayor since the days of Rudy Giuliani, and even Michael Bloomberg found himself oscillating between parties and spending tens of millions of his own fortune to remain in office.

Despite campaigning in the deep-blue Bronx and growing his support in some parts of the city, President Trump still lost there 68-30 last year.

Central to Adams’ appeal will be his increased willingness to reject extreme elements on both sides, though he is more apt to criticize his far-left critics than the Trump administration, he admitted.

Meanwhile, his guns are already blazing in the direction of Cuomo, whom he accused of implementing lenient criminal justice policies that contributed to increased street violence in recent years.

“Look at bail reform — that’s Andrew,” Adams said. “He can’t say, ‘I’m going to save the city from the far left’ when he surrendered to the far left.”