Eric Adams says he is running as a Democrat, won't swap to Republican for mayoral race

As questions swirl about his poll numbers and concerns regarding potential ties to the Trump administration grow, New York City Mayor Eric Adams made it abundantly clear: He is not dropping out of the mayoral race, and he won't be switching parties.

"I am going to be running as a Democrat for the Mayor of the City of New York," Adams said in a sitdown interview with NBC New York. "For all those saying differently, you heard it directly from me: I am going to be running in the Democratic primary."

Despite saying Thursday he "100 percent" will be looking to lock up his current party's nomination in the June 24 primary, there had been rumors and reports Adams had reached out to Republican party officials in the city to see if running as a Republican was on the table.

Adams addressed that conjecture, saying he spoke with different people as a way to form connections and build working relationships.

"My goal is after you win the primary, you have to secure support of all New Yorkers. And I want to establish relationships with those important leaders, county leaders, throughout the city," he said.

If Adams were interested in switching parties, he would be up against a tight deadline: All New Yorkers have until Friday, Feb. 14, to switch political party affiliation.

The other major question facing his campaign (aside from facing questions from members of his own party after President Donald Trump's Department of Justice ordered prosecutors with the Southern District of New York to drop the federal corruption case against him) concerns the other candidates running for the Democratic nomination. Perhaps more accurately, those who have not yet announced whether they are running, like Andrew Cuomo.

Adams said he has "no idea" what the former governor of New York plans on doing.

"I had another Andrew that jumped into my race, he was beating me by double digits in February of 2021," Adams said, referring to Andrew Yang, whom he defeated in the Democratic primary that year. "I said then and I’ll say now: I’m not running against individuals, I’m running against myself. Sell my message, get on the ground, speak to working class people, and they’re going to see I’m one of them and I’m going to produce opportunities for this city."

As Adams looks to regain support from voters, Cuomo meanwhile has been working his way through the city's Black churches, seemingly waiting in the wings, ready to jump into the mayoral race at any moment.

For his part, Cuomo has not publicly stated whether he plans on running. The former governor and his associates have been discussing their strategy for possibly entering the mayor's race with several sources, including Reverend Al Sharpton.

"I think that we've got to be very careful to have the funeral before the body's dead," Sharpton said in a one-on-one interview. "I think that Andrew Cuomo is in a position where he has to, if it is his ultimate goal to run, has to prepare to run, but not look like he's pushing out the second Black mayor."

Asked if he thinks Adams has lost his Black base, Sharpton said, "I think that people would be very, very unwise to count out that he still has a big political base."

Recent polls suggest, despite the scandals that caused him to resign in 2021, Cuomo could enter the 2025 mayoral race as the frontrunner -- with money to spend and New York name recognition dating back to his father Mario Cuomo's three-term reign as governor.

When Cuomo faced impeachment in Albany, Sharpton at the time said he believed Cuomo could no longer effectively govern. So what changed?

"The fact that we just elected a president that is a felon," Sharpton responded. "The rules and the climate and the baseline has changed. We've changed everything with Donald Trump."

"I think it applies to Mayor Adams and everybody else. The one achievement Donald Trump has done is he's lowered the bar so low that I don't even know we can find it," Sharpton said.

While the mayor may be gearing up for a challenge from Cuomo, others in the race don't want Adams in there at all after the now-former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said in a letter to newly minted U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that she was “confident” Adams had committed the crimes.

Before offering her resignation, Danielle Sassoon urged Bondi to reconsider the directive to drop the case against Adams, who was accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions and bribes of free or discounted travel from people who wanted to buy his influence.

In her letter to Bondi, Sassoon accused Adams’ lawyers of repeatedly and explicitly offering what amounted to a “quid pro quo” during a meeting with the Justice Department last month. She wrote that the lawyers had offered the mayor’s assistance with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement priorities if the case were to be dismissed.

“It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment,” Sassoon wrote. She calling the purported offer “an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.”

In an email, Adams' lawyer, Alex Spiro, said the allegation of a quid pro quo was a “total lie.”

“We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us,” Spiro said. “We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement and we truthfully answered it did.”

The department’s decision to end the Adams case because of political considerations, rather than the strength or weakness of the evidence, alarmed some career prosecutors who said it was a departure from long-standing norms.

It also raised concern for Democrats. Two running for mayor, Whitney Tilson and Michael Blake, called on Adams to be removed from office.

It is time for @GovKathyHochul to remove @ericadamsfornyc from office. Today's bombshell release from the former US Attorney exposes a shocking level of criminality. When you take the oath of office, you swear to serve the people of New York City," Tilson wrote on social media. "It's clear that Eric Adams is hopelessly compromised and should not serve another day as mayor."

Rather than have him removed from office, the number two Democrat in the state, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, called on Adams to resign.

"New York City deserves a Mayor accountable to the people, not beholden to the President," he wrote.