As the deadline to file petitions to get on the June 24 primary ballot nears, Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday would not say if he will have enough signatures by the Thursday night deadline to compete in the Democratic primary.
During his weekly City Hall press conference on April 1, the incumbent Democratic mayor declined to confirm whether he will have the at least 3,750 signatures necessary for his name to appear alongside the Democrats running to unseat him.
“As the process moves forward, you’ll see our announcement as they go forward,” Adams told reporters.
The mayor’s comments left open the possibility that he may no longer be seeking the Democratic nomination, which comes as he has not ruled out running as an independent candidate in the November general election. It remains unclear if Adams will still compete in the Democratic primary and run as an independent if he loses, abandon the Democratic race in favor of an independent bid, or bow out of seeking a second term altogether.
Adams has said he is collecting signatures to get on the ballot, a claim backed up by city Campaign Finance Board records that showed he retained a firm called My Brnd Inc. for petitioning work.
But Adams has a barely visible re-election campaign. He has not held any events outside of his official capacity as mayor, has a skeleton campaign operation, and has not attended a litany of mayoral forums frequented by most of his challengers.
Furthermore, Adams’ campaign only netted roughly $19,000 in new contributions over the past two months. And while he has over $3 million in his campaign account, the CFB has denied him over $4 million in matching fund claims.
The mayor has said that he will not fully hit the campaign trail until a federal judge, Dale Ho, makes a final decision on whether to dismiss his corruption case. At the same time, he has argued that mayoral events like speaking at houses of worship and holding town hall events with New Yorkers in various corners of the city count as campaigning.
“Campaigning is going out, visiting people, doing meetings, visiting houses of worship, having gatherings, all those things,” Adams said recently. “That’s my everyday life, you know, my everyday life. There’s nothing I would be doing differently.”
However, those efforts do not appear to be reflected in the polls, where Adams is consistently trailing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and, more recently, Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani.
Cuomo has also managed to sweep up support from much of the coalition that backed Adams’ successful 2021 bid, including the Brooklyn Democratic Party.
