Jim Walden, a prominent attorney in New York political circles, plans to launch a bid for mayor in the coming days — joining a growing pack of contenders looking to replace Mayor Eric Adams next year in the wake of his federal indictment.
Walden, a self-described policy wonk in the mold of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has represented prominent New York politicians, including former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio, and state Attorney General Letitia James. He filed with the city’s Campaign Finance Board to begin fundraising on Wednesday and said he will officially launch his campaign in the near future—a development first reported by Politico.
As a candidate without a party affiliation, Walden said he is prepared to jump into a nonpartisan special election should one be called if Adams resigns — but still needs to decide if he would want to join a Democratic primary for the scheduled 2025 contest.
The Brooklyn Heights resident is a former federal prosecutor; for the last several years, he has been a partner at Walden, Mact, Haran & Willimas, which he helped found in 2015.
Walden, in an interview with amNewYork Metro, said he is distinguishing himself as a candidate focused first on policy solutions to the city’s biggest issues. He believes will be in prime position to do so because, unlike the other candidates running, he does not adhere to a specific political party or ideology.
“I offer New Yorkers a much better vision than anything they’ve enjoyed since Mayor Bloomberg,” Walden said. “We’ve got problems to solve and some of those solutions have a conservative tendency and some of the best solutions have a liberal tendency. Some of the best solutions are right in the middle, and we need a combination … People shouldn’t be voting for where someone is on an ideological spectrum that’s somewhat meaningless. People should be voting for someone who has policies and views that align with creating the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.”
The seasoned attorney said he has already convened a group of policy advisers whom he has organized into subcommittees to tackle various policy issue areas. A couple of his top priorities upon taking office, he said, would be ensuring the city’s streets are safe and that it quickly cuts its carbon emissions to net zero.
“Everything depends on the safety of our streets,” Walden said. “At a very real level, moms being able to walk their kids to school and dads being able to walk their kids to school, it’s hard to do that when you have a person who’s in severe mental health distress, who’s naked and defecating and then starts running after you.”
The former federal prosecutor said he would seek to bullet-proof his administration against the type of corruption that Adams’ City Hall has been accused of by instituting measures like background checks for all appointed officials that would be somewhat publicly available.
Walden is already familiar with the kind of corruption accusations surrounding Adams. He remains the attorney for Joseph Jardin, the former FDNY chief of fire prevention who said he was pressured in 2021 to speed up approvals for a Manhattan Turkish consulate building at the center of Adams’ indictment.
Federal prosecutors accused Adams of pushing then-FDNY Commissioner Dan Nigro to expedite the Midtown tower’s opening even though it had failed required fire inspections after receiving luxury travel benefits and foreign campaign donations from Turkish nationals. Adams has pleaded not guilty to his five criminal charges, which include bribery, soliciting foreign campaign donations, and wire fraud.
Yet Walden said he will refrain from calling on Adams to resign until very clear evidence shows he did something that “broke the public trust” or if his administration starts “devolving to the point that New Yorkers are being ill-served.” He also commended Adams’ recent moves to expel top officials from his administration who are under federal investigation and replace them with well-respected long-time public servants.
All of the other major candidates who have filed to challenge Adams so far are running in the June Democratic primary. They include city Comptroller Brad Lander, his predecessor Scott Stringer, state Sens. Jessica Ramos (R-Queens) and Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn) and Assemly Member Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens).
Unlike those other candidates, Walden has never held elected office and starts from the point of low name recognition among New York City voters. But he expressed confidence that the platform he runs on will turn his campaign into a “movement.”
