The 2025 NYC mayor’s race unofficially kicked off this week as Democrats weighing challenges to incumbent Mayor Eric Adams showed they can raise enough money to be competitive in the race, while even more pols are rumored to be mulling a run.
Earlier this week, former city Comptroller Scott Stringer and State Sen. Zellnor Myrie — who are both exploring a run against Adams next year — each reported amassing six-figure campaign war chests in Monday’s Campaign Finance Board filing. Their hauls show the idea of Adams facing a serious primary next year is no longer theoretical and his path to reelection could not be as smooth as it has been for previous incumbents.
Stringer reported raking in nearly $425,000 since January, a portion of which his campaign says could grow to $2.1 million with public matching funds, and has $298,000 currently in his campaign account. Myrie, in just two months since announcing his exploratory committee, came up with over $326,000 — a portion of which his campaign says could expand to $1.3 million with matching funds.
Democratic strategist Trip Yang told amNewYork Metro that Stringer and Myrie are off to a strong start.
“I believe that Scott and Zellnor did a good job with fundraising relative to expectations,” Yang said. “They both had a good start that showed them as viable candidates.”
Yet Mayor Adams still has a massive cash advantage over his potential rivals. He reported raising $1.1 million since January and more than $4 million overall — $500,000 of which his campaign said is eligible to secure $8.1 million in matching funds. He has nearly $3 million cash-on-hand.
Adams sought to show that he is unbothered by his prospective opponents’ fundraising during a Tuesday news conference.
“I’m just happy New Yorkers were able to contribute to my campaign more than both theirs combined,” the mayor said. “That’s all I do. I stay focussed, no distractions and grind. I’m the hardest working man in show business.”
Adams is facing a growing number of possible challengers amid a perception that he is politically vulnerable due to separate federal investigations into his 2021 campaign’s fundraising and one of his top City Hall aides — Winnie Grecco. Compounding those issues are the mayor’s record-low poll numbers and public outcry over his massive city budget cuts, which have mostly been undone.
But while the mayor is facing serious headwinds, the full extent of who will run against him still remains unclear.
The Queens gambit?
Speculation is that some of the potential challengers to Adams may come from Queens — a borough that has never had a native occupy Gracie Mansion, even while it previously sent a governor to Albany and a president to the White House (by way of Trump Tower).
Socialist Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) is the latest to be seriously considering taking on Adams next year, according to a Wednesday report from City & State NY, following reports that city Comptroller Brad Lander will announce his own bid in the coming days.
Both Mamdani and a spokesperson for the New York Working Families Party declined to comment on the report when reached by amNewYork Metro.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — a self-described “Queens boy,” having grown up in South Jamaica — is also rumored to be pondering a run. However, in a June interview with HBO host Bill Maher, Cuomo said “I have no current plans” to run for mayor.
Cuomo, who resigned from office in 2021 following nearly a dozen accusations of sexual harassment, still has a massive $7.9 million in his state campaign account. But he would be limited in how he could use those funds for a city election.
State Sen. Jessica Ramos has also reportedly been weighing a run, but has yet to make an official announcement.
Progressive canceling out?
There is some concern among progressives that because all of those candidates, with the exception of Cuomo, would be running to Adams’ left, they could cancel one another out. But Yang said the city’s ranked-choice voting system is designed to allow for multiple candidates with similar ideologies to run at the same time.
Yang also noted that among the candidates running to Adams’ left, they are occupying slightly different lanes. Stringer and Myrie, he said, are running as liberal Democrats, while Lander would presumably present himself as a leftist and Mamdani would be the furthest left as a Democratic socialist.
“Zohran is the most to the left,” Yang said. “Then there’s Brad who has kind of been aligned with the Working Families Party throughout his entire elected career. And then Scott and Zellnor, who have been endorsed by Working Families in the past, but have really been positioning themselves as more liberals first in this race.”
While there is the potential for resources and endorsements to be divided amongst the progressive candidates, Yang said they can avoid that by organizing a “no to Eric Adams” coalition.
Camille Rivera, a left-leaning Democratic Strategist, said that while she cannot predict the future, she believes progressive candidates will set their differences aside to prevent a second Adams term.
“I think everyone is taking a risk with running, all of them understand what’s at stake,” Rivera said. “All of them have one thing in common, which is that they don’t want Eric Adams to be reelected mayor. [We’re] going to see a lot more folks playing nice together because that’s the goal. The idea is to figure out how to not reelect Eric.”
