Mayor Adams’ charges are gone. Will his reelection campaign gain enough steam?

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For Mayor Eric Adams, it was the best imaginable news in an otherwise miserable year: On Wednesday, a judge ruled that his federal corruption case would be dismissed for good, putting an end to an indictment that has left him on political life support.

Adams has always insisted that he did nothing wrong. Following the decision, he held a brief press conference at Gracie Mansion where he said the “baseless” case “should have never been brought in the first place” and promoted a book by President Donald Trump’s FBI director, Kash Patel.

But will the dismissal of the charges – which forever link him to Trump and an unprecedented intervention by the Department of Justice – translate into vindication? Adams declared he'd run as an independent Thursday, but he will still have to face the winner of the Democratic primary in November.

The mayor didn’t take reporters’ questions on Wednesday, but as he bounded up the steps of Gracie Mansion, he declared, “I’m going to win.”

Political experts say otherwise.

“Eric Adams has been a nonfactor in the mayor’s race. He will continue to be a nonfactor,” said Trip Yang, a Democratic strategist who is not working on any of the 2025 mayoral campaigns.

Indeed, Adams has been in the single digits in multiple polls. And his approval ratings are at a historic low. A Quinnipiac University survey in March found that 72% of Democrats said Adams should resign.

“Donald Trump might be more popular with New York Democrats than Eric Adams is,” Yang said. “That’s how bad it is.”

Basil Smikle, a former Democratic strategist who teaches at Columbia University, said the mayor cannot “unring the bell” when it comes to his indictment. Smikle said Adams’ reluctance to criticize Trump — a stance that puts him at odds with many of his opponents — is even more problematic.

“It’s not insurmountable,” Smikle said, “but it’s a lot of ground he has to cover politically in a short period of time.”

Before the ruling, Adams had sent mixed signals about his commitment to run for a second term. He hasn’t held any campaign events and he’s seen a steep drop in his fundraising. At his weekly press conference on Tuesday, he refused to say whether he planned to file petitions to get on the ballot for the Democratic primary and then Thursday declared he would run as an independent.

But Adams also delivered his most caustic criticism yet of Andrew Cuomo, a front-runner with plenty of his own political baggage. Polls show the former governor with a comfortable lead against a crowded field of Democrats, but opponents are repeatedly attacking him over his handling of nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic and other policy decisions.

Adams accused Cuomo of being out of touch.

“Ask him when was the last time he was on the subway alone,” Adams told reporters. (The mayor is certainly no stranger to the subways. Just last month he reminisced about riding the A train to visit a “shorty in Rockaway.”)

The mayor’s jabs at Cuomo were a reminder that Adams can be an effective campaigner. But will it be sufficient to defeat Cuomo, who is running on a similar moderate platform centered on public safety?

“Andrew Cuomo is a deluxe supercharged version of Eric Adams,” Yang said. “The best version of Eric Adams is not the one standing before us today.”

This story has been updated to reflect that Adams is now running as an independent.

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