Another potential challenger to Mayor Eric Adams’ 2025 re-election has emerged. That’s a good thing for New Yorkers.
Last week, Brooklyn State senator Zellnor Myrie announced that he is taking steps to contend with Adams for re-election in 2025, joining another potential challenger, former Comptroller Scott Stringer. State Sen. Jessica Ramos and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo are also rumored to be considering bids.
When 68% of registered voters are Democrats, it can feel like elections are predetermined. A competitive primary is critical to giving New Yorkers the chance to cast a meaningful vote. Adams edged out Kathryn Garcia in the 2021 primary by just .8 percentage points but then went on to soundly defeat Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa by 40 points in the November election.
Which is to say, primaries matter. The lead-up to the vote in June 2025 is when candidates will express their competing visions and solutions for this great city.
Mayor Adams has had some hiccups while in office. He has been fending off an FBI investigation into his campaign finances, and a few members of his inner circle have made headlines for scandalous behavior.
New Yorkers have not been thrilled with the mayor’s performance: his approval fell to just 28% in a December Quinnipiac University poll, the survey’s worst-ever result for a New York City mayor.
New Yorkers must be presented with options. More candidates being considered may even help buoy New York’s abysmal voter turnout: just 21% of New Yorkers voted for mayor in 2021. Turnout was slightly higher, 23%, for the crowded 2021 primary.
Advocates fought passionately to implement a pioneering fund-matching program for election financing, specifically to open up the field to more candidates. Candidates backed by small donors can stand a chance against those bankrolled by powerful groups with special interests.
Introducing new viewpoints to the conversation is essential to fostering a dialogue and mayoral agenda that serves all New Yorkers. There’s no shortage of urgent problems the city is contending with: The surge of migrants, preparing young people who were knocked sideways by lost schooling during the pandemic for the workforce, the affordable housing crisis, the tenuous future of the office market and the role of the police, for starters.
Adams won’t welcome the challenge, but he should. Public debate will allow Mayor Adams to tout his accomplishments thus far and revisit what priorities matter most to voters.
New York is a vast city with problems to scale that need urgent solving. Healthy competition is good for democracy.
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