Mayor Adams over the weekend reported his best campaign fundraising period since coming under indictment last year — a haul his reelection team head touted as a sign that the embattled mayor is beginning to bounce back.
In total, Adams’ new filings released Saturday show he raised $300,721 from 225 individuals in the latest reporting stretch, which spanned May 20 and June 9.
A majority of that cash — $212,100 — came from 101 individuals who each gave the mayor’s campaign the legal max of $2,100.
Other 2025 mayoral candidates have had more individual donors who each gave smaller amounts to them in the latest stretch, a potential indicator of more grassroots support. Many of the other mayoral candidates also have received millions of dollars in public matching funds, while the Campaign Finance Board continues to withhold them from Adams due to his indictment.
Still, Frank Carone, Adams’ longtime political confidant, said the latest filing shows the mayor is on the upswing.
“NYC is simply a better pace under his leadership. This filing is a microcosm reflecting that support,” Carone, who’s the chairman of Adams’ reelection bid, told the Daily News.
The latest haul marks the best fundraising period Adams’ reelection campaign has seen since the one that ended July 11, 2024, the final stretch before Manhattan feds indicted him on corruption charges in September 2024.
After his indictment, Adams’ reelection fundraising slowed to a trickle. For instance, his campaign reported just $34,021 in donations in the disclosure period that concluded March 13 as Adams still faced the prospect of standing trial on bribery and campaign finance fraud charges.
But President Trump’s Justice Department secured a highly controversial dismissal of Adams’ indictment in April, a move that prompted him to drop out of the June 24 Democratic mayoral primary and announce he’d seek reelection as an independent in November’s general election instead.
Among the donors behind the latest haul was a group of eight doctors and other health care professionals who together with four relatives donated $25,200 over the course of a few days at the beginning of June, all chipping in maxed-out $2,100 contributions each, the filings show. Their donations amounted to about 9% of the total raised by Adams over the latest period.
On June 9, the mayor honored the eight health care professionals at a Gracie Mansion gala, issuing an official citation that declared them “Health Care Achievers,” according to a report about the private event from The Indian Eye, a community newspaper.
The Gracie event was reportedly co-hosted by Raj Bhayani, president of the Federation of Indian Physicians Association. Records show Bhayani also donated the legal $2,100 max to Adams’ reelection bid back in December.
Reached over phone, Bhayani told The News the June 9 gala was about recognizing “achievements [of] people who are working in the health care.”
“If they or their family has donated there is no direct cause effect relationship,” he said of the mayor. “He’s really friendly to the doctors, health care … We like him, his policies are good, he’s moderate.”
Money also flowed into the mayor’s campaign coffers in the latest period from executives in the real estate and finance sectors. That included some in the cryptocurrency industry, of which Adams is a major booster. Adams hosted a “Crypto Summit” at Gracie Mansion in May and then flew to Las Vegas for a crypto conference where he also held a campaign fundraiser.
The Las Vegas fundraiser pulled in only $3,731 in donations made in connection with that event, the filings show.
Since he opted out of next week’s Democratic mayoral primary, Adams will face off in November against whoever wins that race, as well as Republican Curtis Sliwa, independent Jim Walden and potentially a fifth candidate running on the Working Families Party line.
Per his latest filing, Adams now has just shy of $3 million in private funds in his reelection campaign account.
That means he’s trailing many of his opponents, who have gotten public matching funds. Adams has filed a lawsuit against the Campaign Finance Board, alleging he’s entitled to the public cash.
Meantime, the front-runner in the Democratic mayoral primary, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is practically swimming in cash and has a super PAC boosting his run with millions of dollars more in independent spending.
Adams is still facing historically low approval ratings. In March, a Quinnipiac University poll found only 20% of New Yorkers approve of the job Adams is doing, the lowest such rating the university has recorded in its three decades of surveying that question.
