NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams downplayed a third-party poll that showed him trailing in the mayoral race and took a dig at former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who topped the field.
“Polls don’t make mayors. People do,” Adams said at an unrelated press conference Monday. He held up a printout of a Feb. 10, 2021 story from British news site The Independent titled ‘Andrew Yang opens up huge lead in race to be next New York City mayor.’
“Another Andrew,” Adams said. “In February, Andrew was kicking my rear. And you know what? We don’t say Mayor Yang. We say Mayor Adams.”
Indeed Yang — an unconventional 2020 presidential candidate — led polls for months, until the former Brooklyn borough president overtook him in May in the 2021 Democratic primary for the open mayor’s seat.
This year, however, Adams is an unpopular, indicted incumbent and unlike Andrew Yang — a newcomer to New York politics at the time — Cuomo has won office statewide.
In a poll of this year’s Democratic primary first published by POLITICO, the mayor tied for sixth place when likely voters were asked to pick their first choice in what will be a ranked-choice election. Adams got just six percent, far behind Cuomo, who led with 32 percent support.
On a sample ranked-choice ballot that eliminated respondents who were unsure who to pick, Cuomo started with 39 percent to Adams’ 8 percent and eventually won in round five with 51 percent.
Former City Comptroller Scott Stringer was a distant second to Cuomo in both scenarios.
The poll was conducted in December by Hart Research Associates and commissioned by Progressives for Democracy in America, a group that wanted to assess which candidates could be competitive with the well-known former governor.
Cuomo resigned in 2021 after a report found he sexually harassed 11 women, charges he denies. He has not committed to running for mayor, though he is talking to potential staff and considering announcing next month.
Adams loves to share his own underdog story, as a cop with dyslexia from a working class family who became mayor after trailing in the polls. And he seemed to take a dig at Cuomo, who entered politics by working for his father Mario Cuomo, a three-term governor.
“When you look at some of the people that ran (for) office, they inherited empires. I didn’t,” Adams said. “I didn’t inherit an empire. I had to start from the bottom, and now I’m here.”
New Yorkers connect with him because of that, Adams said, and nobody will outwork him in the mayoral race.
Other recent surveys have shown Adams’ support cratering months before he was indicted on federal corruption charges in September. Adams has pleaded not guilty and plans to run for reelection while on trial.
Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi declined to comment.
Adams has largely strayed from criticizing Cuomo, but recently teased to POLITICO that he might attack the former governor for signing laws reforming the state’s bail process, which the mayor argues led to a rise in crime.
Mayoral candidate Brad Lander made the same comparison to Yang that Adams did.
“I looked back four years ago, and I saw that another Andrew at this point in the news cycle was on top of the polls,” he said at a separate press conference Monday.
“This is the very beginning of the mayoral race. I don’t believe that New Yorkers want another corrupt chaos agent at City Hall,” Lander added, referring to Cuomo. The city comptroller has put a particular focus on keeping the former governor out of office.
Lander ranked third in the Progressives for Democracy in America poll, following Stringer at 10 percent, and ahead of state Sen. Jessica Ramos and former Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. — who’s said he’s not running — at 7 percent. Adams and Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani tied for sixth, as the preferred candidate of 6 percent of likely voters each.
Read the full article here
