The Left Can’t Find Anyone to Challenge Eric Adams

Shahana Hanif, co-chair of the City Council’s progressive caucus, calls Mayor Eric Adams “xenophobic” and a “misogynist” who disrespects women of color like her who push back against him.

Democrat Antonio Reynoso, Adams’s successor as Brooklyn borough president, recently assailed the mayor outside City Hall for “a lack of leadership in this city.”

Progressives might agree on the problem, but with just over a year and a half until the 2025 Democratic primary, they’re nowhere near figuring out who should actually run against Adams. Conversations with 20 elected officials, aides, advocates, and strategists show that New York’s left is in the midst of a crisis that might allow the centrist mayor to go practically unchallenged in his reelection campaign. Despite widespread disapproval of Adams across the progressive and liberal left, there is significant skepticism about finding and unifying behind a candidate who is capable of beating the incumbent. There’s even a degree of doubt about whether to primary him at all.

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