NYC Mayor Adams Blasts Cuomo for Dividing Anti-Mamdani Vote (Full Interview)

New York City Mayor Eric Adams discusses his candidacy for re-election as an independent and the state of his former Democratic party.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams slammed the state’s former governor Andrew Cuomo for blowing the Democratic primary race, running as an independent and potentially splitting the vote against Zohran Mamdani.

“He created this scenario that created an opportunity to divide the vote instead of being unified around Mamdani,” Adams told Bloomberg Radio on Thursday. “He had his chance, $25 million spent — now it’s time for me to have an opportunity and we will win and beat him.”

Adams, 64, is running for reelection in November as an independent after dropping out of the Democratic primary earlier this year amid faltering poll numbers and a corruption scandal. The former police captain will face democratic socialist Mamdani, 33, who won the Democratic mayoral primary last month, Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, Cuomo and another independent, Jim Walden.

A recent Slingshot Strategies poll found Adams in fourth place among the candidates appearing on the ballot in November. Just 11% of those polled said they would vote for Adams in the general election if it were held today.

Adams argued only a fraction of people voted in the Democratic primary and his campaign plans to register 1 million new voters, as well as campaign for independent votes. He dismissed the idea of running on the Republican line.

Mamdani, who beat Cuomo by more than 12 percentage points, got about 565,000 votes in the primary, pulling together a coalition of younger- and middle-class voters across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. The Queens assemblyman campaigned on a platform of making the city more affordable by freezing rents, offering free childcare and setting up government-run supermarkets, while raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to fund his agenda. He also voiced support for Pro-Palestine causes, a divisive issue in New York City, which is home to significant Jewish and Muslim populations.

Adams said he has met with bodega owners and property managers concerned about Mamdani’s promises.

“These different communities are waking up and realizing what his policies would do to them individually,” Adams said.

Adams became the first mayor in modern New York City history to be indicted on federal corruption charges, but President Donald Trump’s Justice Department ordered the charges dropped this year. Adams has maintained his innocence.

Trump’s actions have raised concerns about whether Adams would be beholden to the Republican president’s immigration agenda, spurring a slew of departures from City Hall. An Emerson College poll in May found 69% of city voters had an unfavorable view of the mayor.

Asked whether he needed to put distance between himself and President Trump in order to win the election, Adams pointed to his record of joining lawsuits against the Trump Administration. “I took the president, his administration to court more than any mayor in America, more than any mayor in America,” Adams said.

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