NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams enthusiastically shared an endorsement of Al Sharpton on Tuesday, signaling to a rising field of rivals that winning his black support will not be easy.
“I really want to thank Reverend Sharpton,” Adams said at the start of his weekly, wide-ranging press conference. “He really just laid [it] out. If you read how this government is treated, you would think you lived in a different city!”
He then launched into a speech praising his perceived successes as mayor.
In Sharpton’s piece, the reverend and prominent civil rights leader praised the mayor’s management and said he should be treated better than the city’s first black mayor. David Dinkinswho was denied a second term by Republicans Rudy Giuliani during a crime wave in the 1990s.
Sharpton’s argument wasn’t new — one of the nation’s top black leaders, he has said the city shouldn’t treat Adams unfairly as it did Dinkins multiple times during Adams’ two-and-a-half years in office. But Sharpton’s op-ed this week coincided with Adams’ continued decline in the public opinion polls and looming scandals.
The mayor is expected to face a handful of mostly white, serious candidates in next year’s June primary who are hoping to defeat him.
Tuesday’s endorsement of one of the city’s most politically influential black leaders is intended to boost support among a key demographic that Adams struggles with. An April poll by the conservative Manhattan Institute found that 47 percent of black likely voters in the general election said they would vote for “someone else” over Adams, while just 38 percent would re-elect the mayor.
Black voters played a crucial role in Adams’ victory in an open seat in 2021, despite the high interest. He dominated areas with large Black populations in Central Brooklyn and Southeast Queens.
Sharpton’s piece is a stark reminder to potential challengers like Comptroller Brad Lander and his predecessor, Scott Stringer, as well as former Gov. Andrew Cuomo that they will be accused of trying to topple a Black leader if they run.
A person close to Adams called it a “not-so-subtle warning to Cuomo and Lander.”
“When I first came into office, I looked back at some of the things they said about David Dinkins,” Adams said Tuesday, echoing Sharpton’s piece. “And the coded words, ‘incompetent.’ We know what that means.”
Adams’ opponents have been using that term for some time as they test out messages criticizing him.
“New Yorkers are ready for change,” Stringer’s campaign wrote in a fundraising message sent out Sunday. “They are fed up with the incompetence and self-enrichment in City Hall.”
And Senator Zellnor Myrie, who is black, announced in May that he was running for the top, opening with the words, “I think people are looking for leadership and competence.”
Sharpton and Adams have a long relationship, dating back to the police chief-turned-mayor who was a founding member of the pastor’s National Action Network.
But the two candidates have not always been close. Sharpton did not endorse him in the 2021 mayoral election, while at times he has promoted candidates favored by Adams.
They now speak weekly, and earlier this year the pastor re-baptized Adams at Rikers Island Jail, a telling example of their deep bond.
His longtime adviser Rachel Noerdlinger told POLITICO that he definitely briefed the mayor before publishing the piece, and that he said he wanted to write it because what’s happening to the mayor is reminiscent of what he fought against with David Dinkins.
Dinkins, who died in 2020, battled a predominantly white press corps that he said held him to a different standard. He also blamed racism for his loss to Giuliani, a former prosecutor who vowed to crack down on crime after the Crown Heights riots.
Sharpton, who has always had an activist streak, is wary of being seen too close to the mayor. Noerdlinger noted that Tuesday’s op-ed was not an endorsement, “because he doesn’t know yet who’s running.”
Still, Sharpton’s piece was also well received by Adams’ team.
First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright held up a printed copy at Tuesday’s press conference and called it “perfect.” Other people expected to play a role in Adams’ re-election, including former chief of staff Frank Carone, deputy chief of staff Menashe Shapiro and deputy mayor Fabien Levy, all reposted the story on X.
History has been kind to Dinkins, as more New Yorkers reassess his legacy. Meanwhile, Giuliani has gone from “America’s mayor” to a political joke. An appeals court officially disbarred him Tuesday, hours after Sharpton’s op-ed was published.
