Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP.

Dear Commons Community,

Mayor Eric Adams is opting out of New York City’s Democratic primary and running for reelection as an independent — embarking on a new path as he further isolates himself from the city’s dominant political party.

The mayor confirmed his plans to POLITICO. In an interview earlier this week, Adams said he would “mount a real independent campaign” that relies on “a solid base of people” outside Manhattan, with an emphasis on ethnic minorities who boosted him to victory four years ago. He lamented how the bribery charges federal prosecutors hit him with in September — which a judge dismissed Wednesday — “handcuffed” him, and he promised to be “uninhibited” on the campaign trail.

“I have been this racehorse that has been held back,” he added. “This is so unnatural for me.”

The result is likely to be a chaotic spectacle in the nation’s largest city, which shifted slightly to the right last November: A showdown between a pugnacious mayor who has irrevocable ties to President Donald Trump, and the winner of the Democratic primary, which Andrew Cuomo is leading.

Adams plans to submit the requisite 3,750 signatures due May 27 to secure a November ballot spot on a public safety-focused line, he and an aide told POLITICO. On Thursday he’s releasing a campaign video in which he discusses his personal trials, expresses regret for lapses in judgment and derides his opponents as soft on crime.

Adams spoke optimistically of his plan, despite the enormous challenges: persuading New Yorkers who typically pick Democrats to select a politically unaffiliated incumbent with a 20 percent approval rating, defending a record of criticizing his own party more than he has Trump and running at a financial disadvantage after being denied more than $4 million in public matching funds.

“I’m in the race to the end. I’m not running on the Democratic line. It’s just not realistic to turn around my numbers and to run a good campaign (from) where we are right now,” he told POLITICO. “It hurts like hell.”

The maneuver offers Adams more time to recover from the reputational fallout tied to corruption charges that Trump’s Department of Justice moved to drop. It gives the mayor a chance to connect with the city’s growing population of unaffiliated voters and avoid what polls show would be a resounding defeat in the June 24 primary. And Adams said he would “go to court if need be and fight for our matching funds,” which are controlled by the city’s Campaign Finance Board and are all but essential to running a successful race.

He also believes this liberates him to sell himself to voters as he has long wished: a former police captain dialed into public safety; a political enigma who doesn’t neatly fit into either major party. The federal case against him, he told POLITICO, has been personally and financially painful but is now part of a biography he will lean on to connect with voters who have struggled in their own lives. “My life story is what is my most potent weapon,” he said.

It is all a huge gambit.

Absent extraordinary circumstances — like the crime wave of the 1990s that lifted Republican Rudy Giuliani, a former prosecutor, to office, or the Sept. 11 terror attacks that elevated self-funded billionaire Mike Bloomberg in 2001 — New Yorkers generally elect Democrats to lead their city. Republicans will likely have their own candidate. That leaves Adams with seven months to reach less engaged voters he believes he will resonate with.

While he’s short on funds and friends, Adams has the advantages afforded to incumbents and all the free media attention that comes with it, as well as charm and retail political chops.

“Now I need this runway until November to redefine and remind people: This is why you elected me in the first place,” he said.

New York City is home to 3.3 million registered Democrats, 1.1 million independents and 558,778 Republicans. Though Democrats enjoy a major advantage, 220,346 more voters have enrolled as independents over the last eight years.

Adams and his team are counting on the Democratic nominee winning by a small margin — a safe bet given the crowded field and the nature of ranked choice voting. They’re assuming Adams can appeal to some of the Democratic voters who won’t have backed the eventual nominee — a riskier gamble given his apparent approval of much of Trump’s agenda.

Privately, some allies acknowledge he likely stands his best chance against Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, rather than moderate Andrew Cuomo.

No matter what, the specter of national politics looms.

New Yorkers rejected Trump by a 68-30 margin and are clamoring for someone to stand up to him, according to research shared by rival campaigns. And while the mayor said he will not change his party registration, he is more inclined to criticize the left flank of his own party and Joe Biden’s White House than he is the Trump administration.

He told POLITICO he seriously considered suing the Biden administration over the financial burden placed on New York City by an influx of migrants — before his City Hall staff advised against it on political grounds. He said he has finger-wagged city commissioners who were “silent” on Biden’s border policy but are quick to criticize Trump.

In remarks after learning his case was cleared Wednesday, he held up a book lambasting the “deep state” authored by FBI Director Kash Patel, one of Trump’s lightning rod appointments. Adams said he found the rationale behind his case in the book, “Government Gangsters,” which warns of a politicized justice system and is rife with MAGA talking points. “Read it and understand how we can never allow this to happen to another innocent American,” he said.

Nevertheless, Adams said he’s sick of political extremes in both parties and believes this election will vindicate that perspective.

“The mayor’s going to set forth policy he believes is right (and) he’s going to do it with authenticity, regardless of whether it’s coming from the Trump administration (or) coming from traditional Democratic leadership,” his close friend and adviser Frank Carone said in an interview. “He is the mayor of New York City, not the mayor of the Democratic Party.”

Carone called himself the titular head of the campaign and said a staff is being assembled. It does not appear that team will include two top aides from his 2021 race — consultants Evan Thies and Nathan Smith.

Carone and the mayor emphasized the successes they believe have been drowned out by a period of chaos and scandal at City Hall: a drop in crime, more housing construction and private-sector jobs, improved tourism numbers. They proactively tout the mayor’s decision to cut municipal services — an unpopular move at the time — as evidence Adams is courageous and sensible, given the city’s strong bond ratings.

“New York is just objectively in a better place today than it was Jan. 1, 2022, when the Adams administration began,” Carone said. “When the people of New York focus on that and not the rest of the noise … then I think you’re going to see a different tone coming out of the voting public.”

Adams unloaded on his rivals during the interview, namechecking Cuomo for signing into law changes to state bail measures that the mayor blames for a Covid-era rise in crime. “Look at bail reform — that’s Andrew,” Adams said. “He can’t say, ‘I’m going to save the city from the far left’ when he surrendered to the far left.”

Cuomo recently defended his approval of cashless bail.

“Bail reform righted a terrible social wrong. We were putting people in Rikers, in jail, who hadn’t been found guilty of anything, just because they couldn’t make bail,” he said. “It shouldn’t be that because you’re wealthy, then you can make bail and you’re released, but if you can’t make bail then you stay in jail even though you haven’t been found guilty of anything yet.”

Adams also laced into Cuomo for resigning in 2021 amid accusations of sexual misconduct that Cuomo continues to vehemently deny.

“I never put my personal challenges in the way of delivering for New Yorkers,” he said. “What happens the next time he has a personal crisis? Is he going to abandon the city?”

Adams, whose corruption case coincided with at least six top aides being embroiled in their own scandals, prides himself on giving no consideration to calls for his resignation.

And so the man who says God chose him to be mayor of the nation’s largest city, who hates backing down from a fight, is embarking on this untrodden path. It is a remarkable turn for someone who declared himself the “face of the new Democratic Party” four years ago.

On Monday, seated inside an ornate room in the official mayoral residence of Gracie Mansion with no aides present, the typically resolute Adams wavered when asked what still draws him to the Democratic Party.

“I think there are good people in the party,” he said, adding, “I think there are good people in all of these parties.”

Asked whether Democrats can reclaim voters in the working class, the self-avowed blue-collar mayor lamented extreme views on both sides, noted Trump fairly won the election and decried “hypocrisy” among those disturbed by Trump pushing to drop his case, but not by Biden pardoning his son, Hunter.

Asked again, he underscored his own intent to appeal to working-class voters before pivoting to an unprompted critique of Democrats who compared Trump to Adolf Hitler.

He did allow a few areas of disagreement with the White House when pressed: He reiterated his administration’s lawsuit over the Trump administration’s clawback of $80 million in federal funds from a municipal bank account, and he insisted he would refuse to cooperate in any civil immigration enforcement that may come.

The challenges before him are vast, but Adams is adamant about writing his next chapter — even if it is his last.

“If I’m able to come back, with all that I went through,” he said, “people were celebrating my demise, and I’m able to come back and be elected again as mayor, no citizen in this city will ever give up.”

Assuming Eric Adams is the independent candidate, Andrew Cuomo the Democratic candidate, and Curtis Sliwa the Republican candidate, the NYC mayoral race surely has the potential to be “a chaotic spectacle.”

Tony