Eric Adams gets major challenger to reelection effort

New York Comptroller Brad Lander is challenging the city’s mayor, Eric Adams, in the 2025 mayoral election, he announced Tuesday.

Lander has been the most notable official to launch a bid to replace Adams so far, and he is expected to target left-wing voters who have been dissatisfied with the mayor’s governance.

“But we can replace a leader when they fail the basic tests of the job: to be honest with us, to keep our families safe, to make sure our kids learn,” Lander said in his campaign launch video. “The basic things New Yorkers need their government to do.”

It is rare for a citywide-elected official to run against an incumbent mayor. It last happened in 1989, but it’s indicative of Adams’s lacking approval rating tarnished by a migrant crisis that has drained the city’s resources and shelter space.

That’s one of the problems Lander will seek to attack him on, saying in an interview with the New York Times that, “in many ways, City Hall has substituted cruelty for management.”

Adams is the only centrist in the 2025 race as he faces a host of declared progressives. State Sen. Zellnor Myrie and former Comptroller Scott Stringer have sought to challenge Adams with left-wing policies in mind.

Adams is also facing an investigation into his campaign fundraising due to allegations he conspired with the Turkish government to funnel illegal foreign donations into campaign coffers. He has an approval rating of only 28%.

However, the city’s ranked choice voting system could favor Adams as the incumbent if too many challengers take him on.

“I certainly share — and I believe the other candidates do — the clarity that we need a new mayor, and it will be important to be strategic about that,” Lander said.

But Adams has an $8 million campaign war chest to Lander’s $3 million, and Adams could carry a critical city voting base, people of color, if Lander can’t sell himself well enough. Lander said he had a “track record of working with really diverse coalitions of New Yorkers.” He says it’s less about being centrist or progressive and more about who’s capable of being mayor.

“I really don’t think this is a moment where people are focused on ideology,” Lander said in the interview. “People want a compelling vision and someone who can actually deliver the goods.”