New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) has rejoined the mayoral race after a judge dismissed his corruption case, but he is now running as an independent, which will allow him to skip the Democrat primary to focus on the general election later this year.
Adams, who has served as mayor of New York City since 2022, posted an announcement video on X declaring his candidacy for reelection as an independent. In the video, he noted that he is still a Democrat, but will “forego the Democratic primary for mayor and appeal directly to all New Yorkers as an independent candidate in the general election” — which some say could pave the way for a Republican to win the mayoral race in the deep-blue city for the first time in nearly two decades.
“I firmly believe that this city is served by truly independent leadership, not leaders pulled at by the extremists on the far-Left or the far-Right, but instead those rooted in the common middle, the place where the vast majority of New Yorkers are firmly planted,” Adams said in the video.
“New Yorkers are strong and they deserve strong leadership,” he added. “And when New Yorkers worry about their bills at the kitchen table or feeling safe on a subway platform, they don’t expect a political party to help. They want leadership from a person who understands their struggle and their story.”
— Eric Adams (@ericadamsfornyc) April 3, 2025
Because he is running as an independent, Adams now has more time to submit petitions to the Board of Elections to qualify for the mayoral race. Rather than having to submit the petitions on April 3 to join the Democrat primary, Adams now has until May 27 to do so.
This news comes as polls show that Adams trails other Democrats when it comes to the June 24, 2025, primary. The highest polling candidate thus far is disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), despite his sexual harassment scandals and his COVID decisions that directly caused the deaths of 14% of the state’s nursing home population.
🚨 JUST IN: Wow, with Cuomo leading polls at 32% for NYC mayor, guess they don't remember the mishandling of Covid and the nursing home deaths.
Thoughts? ⬇️🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/2E7cLJ2I1b
— Tony Lane 🇺🇸 (@TonyLaneNV) January 22, 2025
Adams’ decision to run for reelection as an independent also comes after U.S. District Judge Dale Ho dismissed the charges against Adams in his corruption case on April 2 “with prejudice,” which means that the Department of Justice (DOJ) cannot re-file those charges in the future based on the same evidence. The Biden administration’s DOJ indicted Adams on federal charges that included accepting payment for foreign travel expenses from wealthy Turkish nationals, but the Trump administration argued that the charges were politically based because they were only filed after Adams began speaking out about Biden’s horrific border crisis. Adams has argued that the case against him had “dragged on too long, making it impossible to mount a primary campaign while these false accusations were held over me.”
