The New York Times report on New York City Mayor Eric Adams dropping his reelection bid is full of the driest of humor.

To get a taste, read these paragraphs, which come right at the top of the report.

In a nearly nine-minute video message that began with Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” the mayor conceded that despite his best efforts, he could no longer see a path to re-election and would conclude his tumultuous mayoralty at year’s end.

He blamed “continued media speculation about my departure” and a decision by the city’s Campaign Finance Board to deny him public matching funds for his campaign, which has flagged amid anemic poll numbers and a cloud of scandal around City Hall.

“Despite all we’ve achieved,” he said, “I cannot continue my re-election campaign.”

Sinatra songs. A “cloud of scandal.” An arcane dispute about public matching funds. “Despite all we’ve achieved. . . .” It’s all classic Eric Adams.

Was the city better off during Adams’s tenure? It’s hard to argue that there haven’t been improvements since the Bill de Blasio years: the economy has grown a bit, crime is down, the out-of-control chaos of the pandemic years has receded.

But it’s hard to say whether this had much to do with Adams’s leadership, and his mayoral initiatives in particular, or whether the city was simply done with the groundhog-murdering Mayor de Blasio. Well, perhaps with one notable exception: Adams’s war on rats. From the mayor’s push to require improved containerization in the city (i.e., trash bins with locking lids) and exploring “rat contraceptive” methods to hosting the National Urban Rat Summit, Adams has been singularly focused on this very New York problem during his time in office. (Okay, yes, Mayor Adams has also been focused on all the shady corruption stuff too.) He can count me — a onetime resident, and a terrific lover, of the world’s greatest city — as a supporter of his rat efforts. Sign me up as a soldier in the mayor’s rat war.

But has any of it worked? Well . . . no, not really. The rats seem to be winning. In fact, Kathleen Corradi, Adams’s “rat czar” just resigned, and the New York Post reports that the Adams–Corradi anti-rat record is mixed, at best:

Over the course of her over two-year tenure, the city won a few skirmishes – overall rat sightings from 2024 to 2022 dropped 4.13% while sightings in rat mitigation zones largely saw steadier drops, like Crown Heights residents reporting 145 less rodents on their local blocks.

Other rat mitigation zones, like Bronx CB-4 which covers parts of Concourse and Highbridge, have seen increased rat sightings this year. Records from 311 show that at least 663 rats have been spotted this year so far, which is far above 2022’s total of 546 and 2024’s high of 482.

Alas, the rats will always be with us, though perhaps Eric Adams won’t.