Lawmakers reveal how Adams’ abrupt campaign exit impacts NYC mayoral race: ‘One last chance’

Mayor Eric Adams dropped out of his re-election bid over the weekend — a move two Republicans told Fox News Digital was the right move, warning New York City faces serious consequences if the current frontrunner prevails.

Adams announced his decision to exit the race on Sunday in a nearly nine-minute video posted on social media, offering no clues about his plans after leaving office, explaining that he was unable to raise the funds for a “serious campaign.” 

The race to become New York City’s next mayor is now a three-person race with socialist Zohran Mamdani leading former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, and Fox News Digital spoke to several New Yorkers about where the race stands now. 

“With Mayor Adams suddenly stepping aside, New York City has been jolted awake. The question now isn’t about personalities—it’s about direction,” GOP New York State Rep. Jake Blumencranz told Fox News Digital. “Do we steady the ship with leadership that at least keeps the city functioning, or do we hand over America’s largest and greatest city to a socialist experiment that could unravel public safety, bankrupt our economy, and poison our schools? This is the showdown of competence versus chaos.”

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Blumencranz complimented Adams for doing something “rare in politics” by putting the “city ahead of himself” in a move he says gives New Yorkers “one last chance to unite around a credible alternative to extremism.”

Fox News polling shows support for both Cuomo and Sliwa slightly increases with Adams out of the race, but Mamdani still holds a significant lead, leading Cuomo by 16 points among likely voters.

Republican Inna Vernikov, a New York City councilwoman, told Fox News Digital that Adams “made the right choice” dropping out of the race but pointed out that his name will still be on the ballot and called on him to “ensure no vote is wasted” in order to use “every vote” to defeat Mamdani. 

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“The reality is simple: if we split resources, we’re empowering a socialist, anti-American threat to this city,” Vernikov said. “Any ego-driven detour from that truth will only drive us deeper into the ground.”

Cuomo and Sliwa have indicated they will continue forward in the race and Mamdani responded to the Adams news on Sunday saying, “New Yorkers will turn the page on the politics of big money and small ideas.”

“Donald Trump and his billionaire donors might be able to determine Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo’s actions but they will not dictate the results of this election,” Mamdani said. 

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Going forward, Blumencranz told Fox News Digital that the race shouldn’t be framed in terms of “left versus right” but rather “competence versus chaos” and “reality versus fantasy.”

“If New Yorkers don’t see that now, we’ll wake up and wonder how the world’s greatest city became a failed experiment,” Blumencranz explained. 

“Eric Adams’ exit is New York’s last off-ramp. We either rally around serious leadership that can win—even imperfect leadership—or we let a hellbent socialist experiment rewrite America’s flagship city. The choice is ours, and the clock is ticking, and New York deserves better.”

Pressure had been mounting since Mamdani won the Democratic primary for Adams or Cuomo to drop out of the race to consolidate support against Mamdani. Even if all 8% of Adams’ supporters voted for Cuomo this November, the former governor would still be trailing by at least 10 points, according to the Fox News survey. 

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In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump said that Mamdani “will prove to be one of the best things to ever happen to our great Republican Party.”

“He is going to have problems with Washington like no Mayor in the history of our once great City. Remember, he needs the money from me, as President, in order to fulfill all of his FAKE Communist promises. He won’t be getting any of it, so what’s the point of voting for him? This ideology has failed, always, for thousands of years. It will fail again, and that’s guaranteed!” Trump said. 

Mamdani dismissed the Truth Social post, telling reporters that Trump is “going through the stages of grief” regarding Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. 

Fox News Digital’s Deirdre Heavey contributed to this report.