Another Adams Is Being Recruited To Run For Nyc Mayor In Attempt To Thwart Andrew Cuomo

NEW YORK — New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams was on her way to a quiet retirement. Now the low-key politician is being drafted to run for mayor in a last-ditch effort by some of the state’s biggest political power players to block former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The possible late entrance into the race to oust the indicted Eric Adams speaks to the depth of frustration and anxiety New Yorkers are feeling about their choices.

The effort to recruit the 64-year-old council speaker, a Black woman from Queens who bears no relation to Mayor Eric Adams, is picking up steam. As POLITICO first reported, Attorney General Letitia James — a Democrat who has warred with Cuomo — is among those making phone calls promoting the council speaker’s potential candidacy, according to nine people familiar with the outreach.

James declined to comment, as did Adrienne Adams.

Leaders of District Council 37, the largest municipal union in New York, are also supporting the effort, according to three people familiar with the conversations who were granted anonymity to freely discuss private strategy.

Union president Henry Garrido would only say the labor organization will undergo a standard candidate endorsement process.

Eric Adams appears to have a near-impossible path to reelection, having just been cleared of criminal charges by President Donald Trump’s administration in what a lead prosecutor called a quid pro quo to help the White House deport migrants. Four deputy mayors have since resigned, Adams’ polling numbers are abysmal and he was denied public matching funds.

Cuomo — who resigned from the governorship in 2021 amid sexual misconduct charges that he denies — is leading the polls and expected to jump into the race in the coming weeks. He has a $7.7 million state warchest he can hand over to a PAC controlled by an ally. But while he remains the best known candidate in the race, recent polling shows he has both relatively high positive and negative numbers with voters. He is already the target of every other candidate, and many Democratic leaders privately shudder at the prospect of dealing with his aggressive style of governance.

And then there’s the conundrum for Black voters and leaders of realizing the city’s second Black mayor may be a one-term executive. Enter the latest recruitment effort — unlikely as it may be.

“When it came to the presidential race, Black women, we did our job. We’ve got the receipts,” Lupe Todd-Medina, a Democratic consultant who’s uninvolved in the mayoral race, said of the nascent effort. “Unfortunately, we didn’t see the result that we wanted to see. But because of that, there's this energy that we have leftover from that campaign. And that is what we’re using now, moving into the city elections.”

Cuomo’s camp has privately expressed confidence about its ability to take on Eric Adams, despite their overlapping bases of Black, orthodox Jewish and moderate Democrats. Adrienne Adams, who has relatively low name ID, would further cut into a portion of that base as she hails from Southeast Queens — a primarily middle-class Black area where voters turn out in high numbers.

Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi declined to comment.

Adrienne Adams — who has had an increasingly contentious relationship with the more conservative mayor over policy disputes — is term-limited at the end of the year and has been firm in her lack of interest in running for higher office. But she’s warming up to the idea following conversations and phone calls encouraging her to run.

“When I say people are begging, I mean begging,” said one Democratic operative friendly with the speaker. “If she does this, it’ll be 1000 percent because she’s been drafted.”

After POLITICO and the New York Post reported Wednesday morning on the movement to draft her, Adams made calls to “tier one” political leaders to discuss a possible candidacy, according to two people familiar with conversations who were granted anonymity to speak about private discussions. “It’s like ‘what are you thinking? What’s needed in a candidate?’” one said. “And leaving the opportunity open to her interest.”

“She’s seriously considering,” said the other.

Adrienne Adams would face serious challenges if she were to launch a campaign just four months before the June Democratic primary, though.

She has no real campaign infrastructure with petitioning starting in a week and just over $200,000 in a campaign account while other mayoral candidates have millions of dollars socked away. She’s never flirted with a citywide campaign and has a low profile outside the city’s political class. An October Slingshot Strategies poll found that 58 percent of registered New York City voters either hadn’t heard her name or didn’t have an opinion of her. Those who did know of Adams were nearly evenly split, with 22 percent having a favorable opinion and 20 percent viewing her unfavorably.

Leading 50 other council members is a thankless job requiring endless compromises and constant controversy. Because of that, there’s what some in politics call the “curse of the speaker.” All five previous politicians to hold the office have lost in citywide elections, including Christine Quinn, who started out as a front runner in the 2013 mayoral race.

“The battlefield of past mayoral elections is littered with the dead carcasses of failed speaker candidates,” another Democratic consultant who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the campaign said. “There’s no indication that Adrienne Adams would have any different fate.”

The push to draft Adrienne Adams is just the latest effort by political players — including labor leaders and business titans — to pull new candidates into the race. James herself was the subject of such an effort after Adams’ indictment, POLITICO reported, but she declined, as did nonprofit leader Jennifer Jones Austin, an ally of Rev. Al Sharpton. Rep. Dan Goldman said he too was recruited to run for mayor, but he chose to stay out and endorse state Sen. Zellnor Myrie instead.

Myrie is the top Black candidate in the mayoral race apart from Eric Adams, but his progressive record in Albany and relatively low profile have left some would-be Adrienne Adams supporters hoping for an alternative.

“I just think a lot of people are like ‘who?’” said the consultant, who’s friendly with Adrienne Adams. “It’s like, ‘where’s the thing? This is the Eric Adams alternative?’”

Myrie’s campaign declined to comment.

Similarly, the top woman in the race, state Sen. Jessica Ramos has struggled to raise money and has a vanishingly small path to victory.

The effort to get Adrienne Adams to run is reminiscent of her path in the city council speaker race in 2021. She ran a quiet, low-key campaign while others spent months hustling for their colleagues’ support. At the time, insiders didn’t think she had a chance to win, until top political and labor leaders settled on her as an acceptable compromise candidate.

Always careful in her speaking, she has made waves with her criticisms of the mayor in recent weeks. She called him out for skipping Martin Luther King Jr. Day events to attend Trump’s inauguration, and on Monday night, said the mayor should resign.

And as she accepted an award at an annual gathering of lawmakers of color on Sunday, she called out the “craziness” on the other side of City Hall and pledged she’ll never have “corruption,” “misrepresentation” and “embarrassment” as the leader of the City Council — a clear shot at the mayor, who she called on to resign Monday night.

Many in the crowd — including James and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — responded with a chant: “Run, Adrienne, Run!”

Adams laughed and told James and Williams to sit down and stop — but kept the door open.

“I love you all for that. I love you all for your faith. We’re going to continue to do what it is that God has us to do,” she said. “Whatever that may be. Never say never, brothers and sisters.”

A version of this story first appeared in Wednesday’s New York Playbook. Subscribe here.