As he made his return this week from a brief public hiatus, Mayor Eric Adams used his first speech to convey a message: He is being treated unfairly because of his background. He has delivered on his campaign promises. And he is not resigning.

“Every day they burn candles, they light incense, they say prayers, they do everything they can: Is he gone yet?” Mr. Adams said at an interfaith breakfast his office hosted. “No. He’s not.”

With the mayoral primary looming in June, Mr. Adams has been road-testing a message of resilience, portraying himself as a working-class Black native New Yorker running against people and institutions of privilege.

But if Mr. Adams hopes to win the heavily contested Democratic primary, he will need to persuade voters in the Black neighborhoods where he won broad support in 2021. Those voters also supported one of Mr. Adams’s presumed primary opponents, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

If they both run in the Democratic primary, they will test the allegiances of Black voters, a key constituency that accounts for nearly one-third of Democratic primary voters. They also risk splitting their support and hurting their political prospects in the process.