Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to drop his re-election bid provides a boost to Andrew Cuomo in the race for City Hall, but not nearly enough to topple mayoral front-runner and Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, pollsters and campaign strategists said.
Before his Sunday announcement, Adams was polling in the high single digits — not enough alone to change the trajectory of the race, said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist University Institute for Public Opinion.
The mayor received 9% support in Marist’s poll released earlier this month, a distant fourth behind Mamdani, Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.
There are too few Adams voters to shift elsewhere to make a dramatic difference.
“It gives Cuomo a boost — but it’s not enough,” Miringoff told The Post.
Slingshot Strategies’ founding partner Evan Roth Smith, who is also a lead pollster for Blueprint, echoed Miringoff’s point.
“There just aren’t enough Adams voters out there to go somewhere new,” Smith said.
“So all said, it’s probably worth a couple points for Andrew Cuomo, but Andrew Cuomo needs way more than a couple points to catch up to Zohran.”
Recent polls have Mamdani ahead of Cuomo by about 20 percentage points.
The Democratic socialist was unfazed by Adams’ announcement and spoke directly to Cuomo in a social media video addressing the news.
“And to Andrew Cuomo, you got your wish. You wanted Trump and your billionaire friends to help you clear the field,” Mamdani said in an Instagram clip posted Sunday.
“But don’t forget, you wanted me as your opponent in the primary, too and we beat you by 13 points. Looking forward to doing it again on November 4.”
A Mamdani advisor pointed out that the mayor was compromised and damaged politically by the Trump Justice Department tossing his criminal case and his other dealings with the unpopular president.
“The man [Adams] doesn’t impact this race at all. Hasn’t from the moment he cut the deal with Trump. That was game over for him as a player in the field,” said Patrick Gaspard, the former US ambassador to South Africa under former President Barack Obama, and an adviser to Mamdani.
Gaspard also said Adams’ departure gives the frontrunner an opportunity to make inroads with more older, black voters who stood with the incumbent mayor.
The Mamdani camp noted the on-the-ground enthusiasm and turnout operation that his campaign has amassed, which polls didn’t accurately capture during the Democratic primary.
Others argued that Adams bowing out is a bigger deal.
The race is no longer a cakewalk for Mamdani, claimed civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton.
“It could change the temperature of the race,” Sharpton said of Adams’ exit.
“It’s going from a race that was a given for Mamdani to a potentially competitive race,” Sharpton said.
Still, he said Mamdani has the upper hand as the Democratic nominee.
“It’s up to Andrew [Cuomo]. Andrew has to make the case,” he said.
The assumption is that most of the older black, Jewish and Latino voters who stuck with Adams would shift to Cuomo.
The problem is that Cuomo will still be splitting the anti-Mamdani vote with Sliwa.
“Cuomo needs Sliwa’s votes,” Miringoff said.
That’s where President Trump comes into play.
Trump has mocked Sliwa, his party’s candidate, which could conceivably lead to some Sliwa voters switching to Cuomo — creating a potential center-right coalition.
“Do Republicans vote strategically to stop Mamdani? That’s a story that’s yet to be told,” Miringoff said.
The evidence on the campaign trail tells another story. Sliwa has strong grassroots support from Republicans and conservatives across the city, who’ve known him for years and, from the looks of it, won’t abandon him.
Veteran strategist Basil Smikle, who worked for Hillary Clinton and Mike Bloomberg, agreed that Adams’ high disapproval ratings among New Yorkers mean his exit might not trigger a dramatic shake-up in the race.
“At this late stage and given Adams’ poll numbers, it’s unclear how much this matters or helps the anti-Mamdani efforts, but it does clear the field for the head-to-head matchup that Cuomo wanted,” Smikle said — at least in fighting for Democratic voters.
If anything, Adams’ exit could be a relief for Mamdani’s grassroots efforts, given the mayor’s self-assured campaign style, according to Smith, the Slingshot Strategies founder.
“I think there’s a strong argument to be made that Eric Adams was the second-best communicator in this field after Zohran Mamdani. This is a guy who knows how to get attention, own a newsday, deliver a line and land a punch,” Smith said.
“I’ve been on the other side of Eric Adams in an election and it’s not fun.”
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