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Fresh off the dismissal of his federal corruption case, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced that he will run for re-election as an independent, buying himself more time to mend his reputation amid accusations of a quid pro quo with the Trump administration.
In a video released Thursday morning, the scandal-plagued mayor said that although he still identifies as a Democrat, he will skip the party's mayoral primary in June and run instead as an independent in the November general election. The move will afford him more runway to persuade voters to elect him again, though it is considered a long shot in a city where an overwhelming number of voters are registered Democrats.
The candidate who wins the Democratic primary will most likely be elected mayor. Adams’ approval rating has dipped to an all-time low in recent months, and in polls weighing the Democratic candidates, he has lagged behind former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist.
Adams won a huge reprieve Wednesday when U.S. District Judge Dale Ho dismissed the case against him at the Justice Department’s request, without allowing federal prosecutors to revive it in the future. The DOJ had moved to dismiss Adams’ case “without prejudice,” which would have allowed it to bring charges against him down the line, potentially giving the Trump administration leverage over the mayor.
Adams has baselessly claimed that the case against him was “bogus” and suggested that it was brought because he was critical of the Biden administration’s immigration policies — a narrative that President Donald Trump himself has echoed. (Ho said in his order on Wednesday that there was “zero” evidence prosecutors acted with “improper motives” in bringing the charges.)
In his video Thursday, Adams lamented that the dismissal of his criminal case “dragged on too long, making it impossible to mount a primary campaign while these false accusations were held over me.”
His decision to run as an independent is a gamble for a politician whose reputation has been deeply wounded — first by the criminal charges he faced and later by the Trump administration’s push for the case to be tossed out. Adams and his lawyer have repeatedly denied that the mayor engaged in a quid pro quo by offering his cooperation on federal immigration policy in exchange for the dismissal of his case.
Adams on Thursday acknowledged the damage that the controversy has done to his standing, while insisting again that there was no truth to the charges.
“I know that the accusations leveled against me may have shaken your confidence in me, and that you may rightly have questions about my conduct," he said. "And let me be clear, although the charges against me were false, I trusted people I should not have and I regret that.”