The Anti-Mamdanis Are Still Fighting Among Themselves
With the city’s mayoral candidates officially looking toward November, the field has remained unsettled as opponents to Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani continue to bicker about the best path forward.
Mayor Eric Adams, who has shown no signs of stepping aside despite his dismal poll numbers, is trying to chip away at the presumed front-runner and writing off his fellow opponents. In a recent interview with MSNBC, Adams continued to paint Mamdani as someone who is out of touch with the average New Yorker and promising things he can’t achieve. “He is an academic elitist. He studied poverty. I lived poverty. His programs are going to impact working-class people,” Adams said.
Zohran Mamdani studied poverty. I lived it.
— Eric Adams (@ericadamsfornyc) July 11, 2025
He’s an academic elitist with plans he can’t implement, or worse, that would hurt working-class New Yorkers.
Affordability is a real crisis, and I’m fighting for the people who feel it every single day. I grew up poor, joined the… pic.twitter.com/08tszOVJi5
While Mamdani’s primary campaign has been praised for building an extensive coalition to defeat former governor Andrew Cuomo, Adams downplayed the achievement and suggested that the state legislator took advantage of a burgeoning movement that existed prior to him joining the race.
“He already had an army on the streets. They were already in the college campuses. They were already protesting on our streets. The Palestinian movement was already underway. There was already this energy in the streets, the anti-Trump movement,” he said. “All he had to do was pop his head up and say, ‘Hey, I’m in favor of all the stuff you guys are doing. Come join me.’ And people joined.”
Adams also continued to criticize Cuomo, who he alleged has asked him to drop out of the race in order for the former governor to mount his own independent bid against Mamdani. The mayor said that Cuomo has a history of disrespect toward Black elected officials and that he followed Adams’s lead in establishing an independent ballot line to “bamboozle” his run for reelection.
“I gave you an opportunity to go one-on-one with him. You spend $25 million. The voters heard your message. You thought you were up 32 points in the poll, you lost by 13 points. And now you want to have another bite at the apple when you didn’t get out and campaign like you should have? You didn’t walk the streets. You didn’t talk to people. You lived in a cocoon. Now, you should have another shot?” he said of Cuomo.
Cuomo, meanwhile, continues to leave the door open for that second shot at defeating Mamdani, but it remains to be seen if he’ll actively campaign. His spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, is confident that Adams will fail to win over voters, telling NBC New York of the mayor’s standing in the polls, “He’s so underwater with New York voters, he should consider growing gills.”
Despite his criticism of Cuomo, Adams is facing accusations that he, too, has pressured a candidate to drop out. In an interview with PIX11, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa accused Adams of trying to poach voters from his party, claiming that the mayor even offered a job in his administration for his troubles.
“He’s even floated the idea that he would make me the deputy mayor of Public Safety,” Sliwa said. “Could you imagine me and Mayor Adams? We would be like two scorpions in a brandy glass.”
Adams denied that such an offer was ever made. “In no way have I ever offered Curtis Sliwa a job to drop out of the race — that’s simply false. I have not said one word to Curtis in months,” he said, per PIX11.
Though the candidates continue to be at odds, the pile of money opposing Mamdani is growing, even if there isn’t a consensus pick to spend it on yet. The Wall Street Journal reports that an independent expenditure group called New Yorkers for a Better Future Mayor 25 has launched with at least $20 million behind it with the intent of defeating Mamdani in the fall. Hedge-fund billionaire Bill Ackman has already signaled his support for Adams, while sources tell the Journal that former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is expected to join forces with former Trump appointee Bo Dietl on another PAC with goals of raising $10 million. As the report points out, they’ll all also need some kind of actual plan:
Political strategists and financiers say the opening weeks of the general election have been chaotic. They complain the anti-Mamdani bulwark lacks a positive message. And a candidate. And enough voters to win. They worry the flood of outside money could backfire, and make voters suspicious of special interests.
And that would suit the front-runner just fine.