Does Eric Adams Have a Chance?

A deeply unpopular incumbent mayor of New York City fails to secure his party’s nomination for reelection but is determined to continue running for a second term. This sounds a lot like Eric Adams in 2025. But it was John Lindsay in 1969. 

Lindsay was the last New York City mayor reelected without a major party nomination. How he pulled it off is something that Eric Adams should study — quickly and closely. 

At first glance, Lindsay and Adams couldn’t be more different: One was a patrician politician who ascended to City Hall along the gilded path of Yale, a federal job in D.C. and a congressional seat representing the Upper East Side. The other rose from the streets of inner-city Brooklyn, a job as a cop and a stint in the state Senate. 

But it’s the similarities that are important. Both were seen as out of touch with their party’s base. Adams is too conservative for today’s Democratic primary voters, while Lindsay was too liberal for Republicans.

Adams is viewed as a poor manager overseeing a city adrift, and may never fully recover from the corruption scandals that culminated in his indictment. Lindsay was beset by a transit strike that crippled the city at the outset of his first term — and by badly bungling the response to a snowstorm that shut down Queens for a week and left dozens dead just months before the primaries. 

Yet Lindsay won reelection in 1969, with just over 42% of the vote in a three-way race. (The Democrat finished second and the Republican a distant third.) Adams needs to dust off a copy of his playbook if he hopes to defeat Zohran Mamdani. 

Lindsay began by putting together a coalition of Blacks and Jews. That is the same coalition that Adams needs to win back. He should study how Lindsay regained their trust. It began by focusing on the concerns of the middle- and lower-middle class who live in the outer boroughs and in the forgotten precincts of Manhattan. 

He forthrightly apologized to New Yorkers for his mistakes. He owned up to what he had done wrong without mincing words. He looked directly into the camera and said, “I guessed wrong on the weather before the city’s biggest snowfall last winter, and that was a mistake... the school strike went on too long and we all made some mistakes.“  Of course, he contrasted those mistakes with his accomplishments, which “were no mistakes.” CNN has included Lindsay’s ad, titled “Mistakes,” on its list of the half-dozen most effective political ads of all time.

Adams hasn’t apologized yet. Neither did Andrew Cuomo, and we know how that turned out.

Lindsay also embraced New York with an affirmative vision of what life here can be. Adams needs to articulate his own positive vision for the city if he stands a chance of countering Mamdani’s framing of the election around affordability.  

Adams and his advisors need to recognize that he won't win if he relies on scare tactics alone. Whatever one thinks of Mamdani, he is an incredibly skilled politician. It is political malpractice to refuse to recognize that he possesses the political gift of charisma and affability.  

Mamdani simply doesn’t come off as menacing. Twenty-five million dollars of wasted advertisements and mail from the Cuomo campaign proved that.

To be sure, Adams has a tougher road ahead than Lindsay did. For starters, the concerns about Lindsay related to his competence, not his character. Lindsay’s main opponent in the 1969 general election was City Comptroller Mario Procaccino, whose campaign was characterized by a series of verbal gaffes. To say that he was no Zohran Mamdani is an understatement. And while Lindsay ran as an independent, he also had the Liberal Party line, which was a real political force in New York those days.

All these add up to an uphill battle for Adams, but not an insurmountable one. The 1969 primaries were conducted in June, just like this year. That provides a rejected incumbent time to reset his campaign and recover. 

Adams needs to begin by spending far more time in the streets with the middle- and lower-income New Yorkers whose votes he needs to win. He needs to ride the subways, walk the streets, attend Mets and Yankees games — sitting in the stands, not a luxury suite — and generally grab every opportunity to interact with New Yorkers who worry that those in power don’t care about their concerns. Fundraising is an imperative in politics, but Adams needs to shake the perception that he prefers to hang out with those who live 500 feet above the streets of New York and work in offices at similar altitudes.

Lindsay also very cleverly nationalized the campaign by making it a referendum on the Vietnam War, going so far as to run television ads detailing the war’s toll — in both financial and human terms — on New Yorkers.

Especially since the dismissal of his indictment, Adams is seen as very cozy with the Trump administration. That will be a political liability in New York, even in the general election. But imagine if he talked about the surplus of tax dollars New Yorkers send to Washington as compared to what they get back in return, and the impact of federal policies on New York residents. The Fiscal Policy Institute characterized the recently passed budget as “an assault on New York” — but Adams’ response to date has been muted. That needs to change if he is going to have a shot at a second term.

For all the challenges that confronted New York City in 1969, Lindsay’s campaign triggered our collective imagination about life in the City, not our fears.  Adams needs to do the same.

In the past six months, Adams has brought on Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro. Those appointments are a welcome departure from his prior overreliance on friends and associates. He needs to continue to make more top appointments like those.

Adams should pledge to govern with an ideology of excellence, bringing into his administration those with a track record of accomplishment rather than those whose main credential is loyalty to him. That not only signals a departure from his past and a future in which he will hire the best and brightest, it also reminds voters that Mamdani is campaigning on his ideology, not management experience or expertise.  

Urban legend is that Lindsay hitched his reelection campaign to the Mets late-season surge, and that their World Series victory was a decisive factor in his reelection. Time will tell whether the 2025 Mets will also be the Comeback Kids.

But if Eric Adams makes the right moves, he still has a chance to emerge as the winner this fall.