Mayor Adams Monday slammed opponent Andrew Cuomo as having gone back on his word, saying that as the former governor weighed jumping into the mayoral race, he told community leaders he wouldn’t be taking on the mayor.
Adams also called the ex-gov a “double digit loser” for his 12-point primary loss against Zohran Mamdani in his remarks at an unrelated press conference.
“While he was contemplating running for office, he would go around to Black and brown leaders and say, ‘I will never run against Eric Adams. I’m only running if Eric is not going to be in the race. I’m not going to run against him,’” the mayor said.
“Did he keep his word? No, he did not.”
More than a year before formally jumping into the primary race, sources told multiple news outlets Cuomo didn’t want to go head-to-head with Adams in the Democratic primary, and would only by likely to run if Adams didn’t.
“We have no recollection of that and if it was said it was before the mayor became a de facto Republican,” Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo, said of the mayor’s comments.
By the time Cuomo did enter the race on March 1, Adams was still in the race as a Democrat, though he had come under harsh criticism over the dismissal of his corruption indictment by President Trump’s Department of Justice and the perception of a corrupt deal with the president over immigration.
Adams announced he was stepping out of the Democratic race and running as an independent in April.
Cuomo is now also mounting an independent bid for mayor.
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