Why Hochul Did Not Remove Adams

Earlier this week, with great fanfare, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul expressed grave concern about the latest twists in the corruption case of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. On Monday, the city’s four principal deputy mayors resigned in protest after the details came out of Adams’s corrupt bargain with the Trump Justice Department to trade dropping of the criminal case against Adams in exchange for Adams’s political support and cooperation with immigration raids.

Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams from office, had been temporizing. Now, it appeared, she was on the verge of acting. She made a quick trip to the city and spent a day in discussions with political and civic leaders. There were discussions of a process to decide Adams’s fate.

But it was all a head fake. On Thursday, Hochul announced that she would not remove Adams after all.

This choreography is not really about Adams’s corruption. It’s all about the 2025 mayoral elections and the prospects of one Andrew Cuomo, who was pushed out of the state governorship in 2021 on a wave of scandals that included charges of serial sexual harassment.

Cuomo, 67, has been sending strong signals that he plans to run for mayor. His base heavily overlaps that of Adams—African Americans, conservative white ethnics concerned about crime, and the real estate lobby.

Cuomo has been speaking at Black churches and appearing on Black talk shows. He was recently endorsed by former state comptroller Carl McCall, one of the state’s senior Black politicians.

Cuomo has remained embittered that he was forced out of the governorship. In terms of personal vindictiveness, Cuomo is second only to Donald Trump.

Hochul, a relative unknown who became governor only because Cuomo was forced out, dearly wants to avoid the headache of Cuomo as NYC mayor. So Adams is worth much more to Hochul politically alive than politically dead.

With Adams running for re-election, even if he loses badly, he cuts into Cuomo’s support. Indeed, if Adams is still in it, maybe Cuomo doesn’t run at all.

This maneuvering also affects the rest of the mayoral field, who are far more progressive than either Adams or Cuomo. Adams, whose corruption was well known in 2021, managed to win a squeaker of an election only because progressives split.

The situation is further complicated by New York’s system of ranked-choice voting and its rules for filling a mayoral vacancy. If Adams leaves office before March 28, there will be an acting mayor, followed by a nonpartisan special election within 80 days. The acting major with be the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams.

But if Adams holds out past March 28, even if there is a temporary acting mayor, there will just be the normal June party primaries and a general election in November.

If you are handicapping the race, here are the other major players—and pay attention to the tribal politics. Jumaane Williams, 48, who would become acting mayor with the advantages of incumbency in the event of an Adams ouster, has said he doesn’t want the job. He is a close friend of Brad Lander, 55, the city comptroller, who has already declared his candidacy.

Lander is a widely respected progressive. He knows city government as well as any public official. He’s also something of a policy wonk in a city that likes more dazzle, and he is white, at a time when nonwhites have increasing influence in NYC politics.

The other top contender is Brooklyn state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, 38, who is Afro-Hispanic. Like Lander, Myrie is an effective and popular progressive. Both are longtime critics of police abuses, and both have moderated past positions in light of current voter concerns about crime.

There are several others in the race, but Myrie and Lander seem best positioned among the progressives—if the progressive field can agree on a common strategy for how to rank candidates, and if they don’t get bigfooted by Andrew Cuomo.

If Adams is forced out, Cuomo could well win. If Adams and Cuomo are both in, and slug it out against each other, one of the progressives has a much better chance.

Thus does politics make the strangest of bedfellows, strange even for New York.