New York City Mayor Eric Adams could see his reelection campaign buried by a surge of voters trying to find avenues to combat President Donald Trump.
Adams has been accused of growing closer to Trump in order to be pardoned in the corruption case against him.
A Democratic pollster from the Honan Strategy Group detailed that “anti-Trump surge” voters are expected to affect the June Democratic primary in the city’s 2025 mayoral race, and they included some of their projected effect in their latest poll.
The CEO and president of the polling group, Bradley Honan, said these voters wouldn’t be around if former Vice President Kamala Harris was elected president, but they will be coming out of the political woodwork to cast ballots aimed at combating Trump.
“They are activated, they are engaged, and they are animated in their opposition to Donald Trump,” he said. [Trump] is not on the ballot in June, but these voters are going to come out and surge in their participation, and they are going to influence the outcome of the election with Trump in office.”
Honan said these voters are generally younger, female, and progressive.
“They are shaping the race very differently,” he said. “I would also say we didn’t poll them. There is some representation of this group that’s probably not registered to vote today, but they’re going to wake up in the next several months. They’re going to register, and they’re going to turn out.”
That would be bad news for Eric Adams, who saw lackluster results in the poll. His support came in at 9%, tied for third place with socialist New York state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander came in second at 10% support, and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who hasn’t declared for the race, was in first at 35% support.
Eighty-five percent of survey respondents said Adams should not be reelected, and 64% said he is “too closely tied” with Trump. Adams came in as slightly more unpopular than Trump in the poll, with an 83% unfavorability rating to Trump’s 81%.
Honan believes Adams’s association with Trump, which could grow with a pardon from him, is a detriment to him in the race. The pollster believes Adams may have already grown too associated with Trump with the cancelation of his Martin Luther King Jr. Day appearances to attend Trump’s inauguration.
Trump’s Department of Justice also recently met with Adams’s legal team and federal prosecutors to discuss dropping the case, which is set to go to trial in April.
“I think Democratic primary voters are going to see a get out of jail card given to Eric Adams by Donald Trump as nothing short of dancing with the devil,” he said.
The poll also ran a ranked-choice voting simulation that saw Adams eliminated in the fifth round. The progressive Lander and Mamdani stuck around with a combined 30% support, while Cuomo gathered 58% in the sixth round. Former City Comptroller Scott Stringer drew 12% support.
Lander’s campaign celebrated the poll, calling him the “strongest challenger to Cuomo.”
“While Andrew Cuomo leads in name recognition at this early phase, Brad Lander has the most grassroots support, widest political coalition, strongest momentum, and clearest path to beat the disgraced former governor,” said Alison Hirsh, Lander’s campaign manager. “The question before New Yorkers now is: do you want another four years of a corrupt chaos agent, only in this race for his personal gain — or someone with strong, experienced leadership, outstanding public integrity, and real solutions to tackle our toughest problems?”
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Cuomo’s spokesperson declined to offer a new comment on the poll. Cuomo must file to run for mayor and petition to be allowed on the ballot sometime between Feb. 25 and April 3 to be eligible to run in the primary.
If he did file, Cuomo would be the favorite to win.
