Shootings in New York were up 73% in May from a year ago. Hate crimes were up 93% year to date through May 30, though overall crime remains lower than in previous decades. Early to pounce on residents’ concerns over crime, Adams often spoke of his opponent’s public safety plans in apocalyptic terms.
“Black and brown babies are being shot in our streets, hate crimes are terrorizing Asian and Jewish communities and innocent New Yorkers are being stabbed and shot on their way to work,” Adams said after Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Wiley, who supported cutting the NYPD’s budget. “They are putting slogans and politics in front of public safety and would endanger the lives of New Yorkers.”
During his campaign, Adams pledged support for a modified version of stop-and-frisk—which has disproportionately affected Black men—and said he would restore a plainclothes police unit tasked with confiscating illegal weapons that was disbanded after complaints it used excessive force. Police reform, he said, would come through his leadership of the department and better training rather than taking away money from the police force.
The focus on public safety appeared to resonate with voters in the majority Black and Latino districts that pushed Adams to victory. He built up sizable majorities in assembly districts that included neighborhoods like Brownsville and East New York in Brooklyn. Adams also carried districts in the outer areas of Queens, much of Central and Eastern Brooklyn, Northern Manhattan, the Bronx and parts of Staten Island.
His campaign leaned on the support of labor organizations like District Council 37, which has 150,000 members, making it the city’s largest public employee union, and 32BJ—the local building-services affiliate of the Service Employees International Union—which mobilized 6,500 volunteers on behalf of the borough president.
“Our members wanted someone who represented their experience in the halls of power, who will be a champion for working people,” said 32BJ president Kyle Bragg.
Adams was knocked back in the last weeks of the campaign after a Politico story raised questions about whether he actually lived in the Brooklyn brownstone listed on campaign paperwork. Adams took reporters on a tour of his home and showed his electronic toll records in an effort to prove he didn’t actually live in New Jersey. Adams also drew scrutiny over multiple ethics investigations, his ties to the real estate industry, and for accepting donations from developers.
Early polls saw him trailing only Yang, who capitalized on the name recognition from his failed 2020 Democratic presidential bid. Yang conceded on election night.
Partway through the weeks-long count, New York City election officials erroneously tabulated 135,000 test ballots, creating confusion. Once the error was corrected, and ahead of the absentee count, Adams’s lead narrowed to just over 14,000 votes after nine rounds of ranked-choice voting.
Those results spoke to the benefits Garcia reaped from the ranked-choice system and from her decision to campaign jointly with Yang in the final days of the campaign.
Voters like Christopher Ashley, a 38-year-old Queens resident who ranked Wiley first and Garcia second, were indicative of the strong feelings Adams’s campaign elicited. Ashley called Adams’s rhetoric “deliberately divisive.”
If elected mayor, he will also have to reconcile his tough-on-crime message with the political realities of what could be the city’s most diverse City Council ever.
“Progressives are growing in strength and numbers, and we plan on holding our next NYC Mayor accountable and pass a strong progressive agenda that centers Black, Brown, immigrant, and working-class New Yorkers,” said Sochie Nnaemeka, New York State Director of the Working Families Party.
Adams’s rise is the culmination of a decades-long career in public service. Adams joined the NYPD after he was arrested and beaten by officers when he was 15.
During more than two decades in the NYPD, he co-founded a reform group called 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. After leaving the force in 2006, Adams was elected to the state Senate and became the first Black Brooklyn borough president in 2013.
“He rose from humble beginnings by dedicating his life to uplifting all New Yorkers,” said Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn in a statement. “We congratulate Eric Adams on a well-deserved victory, and on becoming only the second Black mayor in New York City history.”