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Another primary challenger has entered the ring against Eric Adams as questions continue to loom about the political future of the mayor and top members of his administration.
On Friday, Jessica Ramos, a progressive state senator from Queens, officially announced her long-anticipated bid against Adams in the 2025 mayoral race. In a video issued in both English and in Spanish on social media, she alluded to the multiple federal investigations looking at the mayor and his inner circle. “You never have to wonder who I’m working for or who’s paying me,” she said over clips of news reports about the inquiries. “We need to bring that trust back to City Hall.”
She joins a crowded field that includes her fellow state senator Zellnor Myrie, comptroller Brad Lander, and Scott Stringer, who previously ran against Adams in 2021. The entry into the race comes a week after federal agents executed search warrants on many key players in City Hall, including first deputy mayor Sheena Wright; deputy mayor for public safety Phil Banks; schools chancellor David Banks; Tim Pearson, a top adviser already mired in controversy; and NYPD commissioner Edward Caban, who resigned Thursday, citing the “distraction” around the department.
Investigators are looking into NYPD nightlife enforcement and whether the former commissioner’s brother James Caban traded on access to his connections to the department. In a separate probe, investigators are looking into an alleged bribery scheme and whether Terence Banks, the brother of the chancellor and the deputy mayor, used his consulting firm to act as an unregistered lobbyist. Federal prosecutors are still investigating Adams’s 2021 mayoral campaign and whether it conspired with the Turkish government to direct illegal foreign donations toward its coffers. The mayor had his own electronic devices seized by federal agents and later returned as part of the probe. Adams has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Though Adams has vowed to continue serving as mayor and to pursue a reelection bid despite the pending investigations, the legal attention is unlikely to help the mayor with his popularity with New Yorkers. In December, a Quinnipiac University poll found that Adams’s approval rating had sunk to 28 percent among registered voters, a historic low.
