Mayor Eric Adams says nothing should scare New Yorkers more than Zohran Mamdani.
Lagging in the polls, Mr. Adams has been scrambling to zap some of the momentum from Mr. Mamdani, the brash Democratic Socialist who has left the political establishment scrambling to stop him in the November election.
“We all agree that Zohran is the No.1 threat to our city,” Mr. Adams said Monday on the “Sid & Friends in the Morning” show on Talk Radio 77 WABC. “There’s no getting around that.”
Mr. Mamdani’s rise has captured national attention and raised questions around whether he is offering national Democrats a blueprint for success with his focus on affordability or damaging the party’s national brand with his push for free buses, free child care, city-run grocery stores and rent stabilization.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on Mr. Adams to gain ground in a re-election push. The 65-year-old former member of the New York Police Department has yet to recover from federal fraud and bribery charges last year.
Mr. Adams caught a break after the Trump-led Justice Department announced it would not pursue the charges, saying it would interfere with its immigration enforcement efforts.
But that created more political headaches for Mr. Adams, opening him up to accusations in a deep blue city, which has been a hotbed of anti-Trump sentiment, that he was selling out New York to save himself from prosecution.
Mr. Adams has denied any wrongdoing and said the federal charges leveled against him represented a weaponization of the Justice Department under then-President Biden.
Still, the legal saga dogs him more than five months later amid reports that the Trump administration was interested in giving him an ambassadorship in exchange for his dropping out of the race, thereby increasing the chances that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo could build a coalition strong enough to knock off Mr. Mamdani in the November election.
Republican Curtis Sliwa, founder of the crime-prevention group Guardian Angels, is also running.
Polls suggest Mr. Adams, a Democrat running as an independent, will need a political Hail Mary to win another term.
Mr. Adams is running last at 6%, according to a recent CBS News/ YouGov survey of likely voters that has Mr. Mamdani leading the pack at 43%, Mr. Cuomo at 28%, and Mr. Sliwa at 15%.
Mr. Mamdani has had a stranglehold on the race since he defeated Mr. Cuomo in the June Democratic primary by almost 13 points.
Mr. Adams reiterated on Monday that the speculation that he will drop out of the race is fake news.
“I have another candidate in the race, and that’s the media,” he said. “What they have done has undermined my ability to raise funds, to continue to secure my voters.”
“When you’re hearing every day that tomorrow Eric is leaving, tomorrow’s Eric is leaving six weeks out, it impacts your fundraising ability. It impacts securing your endorsements. And, you know, many of those who are with me are saying, ‘Eric, we’re just getting all of these mixed messages every day,’” he said. “And so I’m not saying woe is me, I’m saying why not me?”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.