New York City Mayor Faces 3 Progressive Primary Challengers

New York City Mayor Eric Adams holds a press conference in New York City on Jan. 8, 2024. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

NEW YORK—With the recent entrance of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander into the mayoral Democratic Party primary, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams faces three progressive challengers.

Some political observers believe the climate is favorable to challengers from within the party.

Adams has often feuded with the progressive majority on the New York City Council. Others believe Adams’s tough stances on crime and the migrant crisis will earn him sufficient support to win reelection.

Besides Lander, the current primary candidates include his predecessor, former comptroller Scott Stringer, and New York State Sen. Zellnor Myrie.

All three declared challengers hold views that set them apart from Adams on issues like public safety, police and criminal justice reform, and a migrant influx that has brought hundreds of thousands of people to the city in the space of a couple of years, placing strains on emergency housing and other social services.

“The timing of Comptroller Lander’s decision to enter the Democratic primary for mayor suggests that he’s looking to capitalize on the potential for a left-wing backlash in New York City if former President Donald Trump retakes the White House,” John Ketcham, director of cities policy at the Manhattan Institute, a public policy research and media organization, told The Epoch Times.

But for his part, Adams has spoken dismissively of his challenger, calling Lander “the loudest person in the city.”

During his time as comptroller, Lander emerged as a vocal critic not only of Adams but of New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul.

On July 25, the comptroller announced the filing of two lawsuits against the governor for her refusal to lift a pause on congestion pricing, a policy of charging commuters $15 upon entering the city below 60th St.

But Lander is an even more committed foe of the current mayor, and some of the comptroller’s most significant policy differences may be with Adams on the migrant crisis and related fiscal issues, in the view of Ketcham.

“Lander, the highest-profile candidate challenging the more moderate Mayor Eric Adams from the left, has used his time as city comptroller to criticize the Adams administration’s decisions publicly and repeatedly,” he said.

“He has particularly lambasted the mayor’s handling of the migrant crisis and proposals for large budget cuts, accusing the mayor of ‘scapegoating’ migrants for the city’s problems.”

He alluded to a Sept. 9, 2023, tweet in which Lander responded to the mayor’s call for budget cuts.

Lander wrote: “My office will review these proposed budget cuts, but one thing is immediately clear: Scapegoating asylum seekers will not improve education, public safety, housing affordability, or quality of life for New Yorkers.”

While the migrant crisis has received national attention, including from a leaked email in which the city’s Human Resources Administration appealed to employees to work overtime to help accommodate migrants, Lander’s decision to take a less hardline approach than the mayor’s is not a political liability in New York, Ketcham said.

In Ketcham’s view, Lander seeks to capitalize on the fact that, despite the widely publicized problems resulting from the influx of migrants, they still enjoy the sympathy and support of many people in the city and state.

On July 29, State Supreme Court Judge Mary V. Rosado rejected the mayor’s bid for an injunction to require busing companies to refrain from transporting migrants into the city.

Limited Political Liability

In her ruling, the judge raised the legal precedent of Edwards v. California but also explicitly cited New York City’s historical role as a place that welcomes migrants and helps them adapt to life there.

Campaigning to the left of Mayor Adams is not as unrealistic a prospect as some might think, in the view of Jonathan Nagler, a professor of politics and co-director of the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University.

Nagler said he sees limited political liability to the comptroller’s current feud with Hochul.

“It is not a surprise that someone would want to run at Adams from the left,” Nagler told The Epoch Times.

“I think that voters will put the blame for the collapse of congestion pricing on Hochul—it is hard to see it as an issue in the mayoral race. Though that is a shame, it is a blow to the city for it to be snatched away.”

Given the political complexion of a city in which 84.5 percent of voters supported President Joe Biden in 2020, it’s not wise for the mayor to rest on his laurels or assume that what he believes to be moderate, common-sense positions will see him through to a second term, said Keith Naughton, the principal of Silent Majority Strategies, a Maryland-based consultancy.

“I don’t think any mayor is safe. [Former mayor Bill] de Blasio got knocked off. It’s kind of an odd city because it’s so large and has such a diverse population, which makes any mayor’s coalition very unstable,” Naughton told The Epoch Times.

Comptroller Brad Lander speaks during a rally for immigrant rights at City Hall in New York City on May 11, 2023. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Can Adams Prevail?

Ketcham said only time will tell whether Adams will retain support from the city’s powerful unions, but they are longstanding allies of the mayor.

Moreover, Jewish voters and pro-Israel organizations in the city will ardently back Adams thanks to his strong support for Israel, said Ketcham.

“By contrast, Lander and his fellow progressives are caught between a largely pro-Palestinian base and calls to denounce anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism,” he observed.

The city’s diversity undermines any conception of the city as one that leans in favor of the most progressive candidates in every race, Naughton said.

“I think it’s a mistake to view New York as a city driven by Upper East Side liberals, when there are some significant conservative, working-class neighborhoods,” he said.

Moreover, Lander does have a liability thanks to his stance on public safety, which is at odds with members of the law enforcement community and much of the public, said Michael Alcazar, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.

“Brad Lander has advocated for reallocating funds from the NYPD to social services and community programs. This is ‘defund the police’ with a ribbon on it,” Alcazar told The Epoch Times.

“We’ve seen this movie played before in other blue states, which resulted in less than desirable outcomes.”

Alcazar said Lander’s philosophy includes addressing the root causes of crime and moving funds to education, mental health, and housing.

“This is easier said than done,” Alcazar said.

Alcazar said that in spite of the concern and sympathy for migrants among many New Yorkers, some will not overlook the fiscal realities of resettling migrants in the city, which the mayor believes to have already cost more than $700 million.

Between Lander and Adams, there is little common ground on these divisive issues, he added.

“Lander’s contrasting views on these important issues will be central to his campaign. It will be interesting to see how he pitches this to New Yorkers. Will they buy it? Will it resonate with voters?” Alcazar said.

Comptroller Brad Lander and Congressman Mondaire Jones in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, on Aug. 16, 2022. (David Wagner/The Epoch Times)

Rivals on the Left

A wild card in this race lies in the announced candidacy of two other, less-known candidates to the left of the mayor, namely former comptroller Scott Stringer and state senator Zellnor Myrie, said Ketcham of the Manhattan Institute.

In recent public statements, Myrie has made an issue of the affordability of life in the city, which would seem to align him to some degree with the mayor, who has repeatedly cited the costs of accommodating migrants.

But Myrie takes a sharply divergent view from Adams on policing and has supported repealing a bill that keeps officers’ disciplinary records sealed to the public.

Stringer meanwhile has been a vocal critic of the mayor’s record on housing, education, and public safety. He has also been the target of allegations of sexual assault.

“New York City primaries used ranked-choice voting, which allows longer-shot candidates to compete with much lower risk of splitting or spoiling the progressive vote. This makes it less likely that Stringer and Myrie will drop out before the primary,” Ketcham said.

Right now, it remains to be seen whether Lander’s rivals on the left will encourage their supporters to make room on their ballots for other progressives in the second or third-place slot, and thus form a united front against the mayor, said Ketcham.

The mayor’s office did not respond by publication time to a request for comment.