NYC Mayor reacts to poll about Andrew Cuomo as mayoral frontrunner

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.—Mayor Eric Adams declared on Monday that he is prepared to face every opponent in the approaching election this year, even the previous occupant of the state’s top position.

The mayor’s remarks came after a Politico article revealed that former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who hasn’t yet announced his intention to run for mayor in 2025, was leading the Democratic field in a third-party survey.

A non-profit group dedicated to left-leaning Democratic politics, Progressives for Democracy in America, commissioned the poll Politico reported.

Adams responded by drawing a comparison between that survey and those conducted in 2021, which indicated Andrew Yang was the front-runner for mayor as late as February.

He even supplied a hard copy of an online article from The Independent from February 10th that detailed Yang’s overwhelming lead in the 2021 mayoral race.

On Monday, January 13, 2025, Mayor Eric Adams shows a 2021 article that shows Andrew Yang, a former mayoral candidate, winning the polls.(Paul Liotta/Staten Island Advance)

[2021] This was released in February. Another Andrew. According to Adams, who read the article’s headline, Andrew Yang has taken a significant lead in the campaign to become the next mayor of New York City. Andrew was kicking my ass, and you know what, we say Mayor Adams instead of Mayor Yang, proving that people, not polls, elect mayors.

When asked to select a favored candidate for the 2025 primary, 32% of prospective Democratic voters indicated Cuomo as their top pick. Politico reports that between December 16 and December 22, pollsters polled 800 likely Democratic voters.

Following the former governor were Adams and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani at 6%, State Senator Jessica Ramos at 7%, former city comptroller Scott Stringer at 10%, and current comptroller Brad Lander at 8%.

“We did this to see who could be competitive against the former governor given his significant name recognition advantage,” Alan Minsky, the president of the company that commissioned the study, told Politico.

The governor, who resigned from his previous position in 2021 due to a slew of controversies, has also demonstrated a sizable edge in public polls. Adams is currently facing federal indictment and his own set of issues.