Another Queens candidate enters the mayor’s race

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who describes herself as a “Queens Girl,” is officially running for mayor. File photo by Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit

By Jacob Kaye

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is officially running for mayor.

Speaker Adams, who had been mulling over a mayoral run for the past several weeks, became this week the ninth candidate attempting to unseat Mayor Eric Adams in the upcoming June primary – and the fourth from Queens.

The 64-year-old Southeast Queens native announced her bid for Gracie Mansion in a statement late Wednesday, a day after she delivered her final State of the City address as speaker, which in many ways appeared to double as a campaign launch.

Speaker Adams is expected to formally announce her campaign over the weekend in her home borough.

As she did in her Tuesday address, the speaker said the city was in the throes of a leadership crisis, and painted herself as the level-headed civil servant dedicated to bring stability to City Hall.

“New Yorkers can't afford to live here, City Hall is in chaos, and Donald Trump is corrupting our city's independence,” the speaker said in a statement, which was first reported by Politico. “It’s time to stand up.”

Speaker Adams’ late entrance into the race comes after a number of elected officials and labor leaders encouraged her to put her name into the hat, if only to serve as a foil to former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who officially joined the mayor’s race earlier this month and now is situated as its apparent front runner.

The speaker, who spent most of her career as a corporate trainer for a number of Fortune 500 companies, will likely compete for votes in the majority Black neighborhoods of the city that stand to be crucial for Cuomo’s campaign, as well as for the mayor, whose chances at reelection grow longer by the day.

“I never planned to run for mayor, but I’m not giving up on New York City. Our city deserves a leader that serves its people first and always, not someone focused on themselves and their own political interests,” the speaker said.

“I’m a public servant, mother, Queens girl and I’m running for mayor,” she added. “No drama, no nonsense — just my commitment to leading with competence and integrity.”

The speaker will join Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani and State Senator Jessica Ramos as World’s Borough representatives gunning for the mayor’s office. Both Cuomo and Mayor Adams also have Queens roots.

Also running in the primary race are Comptroller Brad Lander, former Comptroller Scott Stringer, State Senator Zellnor Myrie, former Assemblymember Michael Blake and Wall Street veteran Whitney Tilson.

Though the speaker has led the City Council for the past three years and has served in the legislative body since 2017, she’s not known to many voters citywide. The low name recognition will be one of several major challenges facing her campaign. Still, she attempted to get a headstart on addressing the issue earlier in the week when she used part of her State of the City address to introduce herself to those who may not know her.

Speaker Adams grew up in Hollis and graduated from Bayside High School, the same high school attended by the mayor – the two Adams are not related. Her mother was a Rikers Island correctional officer and her father was a Teamster and UPS driver.

The Spelman College graduate eventually began a career in the corporate world, specializing in executive training, telecommunications management and human capital management at a number of major companies, including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Revlon.

In 2009, the now-speaker joined her local community board, Queens Community Board 12. In three years, she was elected to serve as the board’s chair. It was in the position that she began to work toward her first real job in elected office.

In 2016, Speaker Adams jumped into the race to replace City Councilmember Ruben Wills in District 28 after Wills was convicted on corruption charges. She was backed by the local Queens County Democratic Party and by then-Governor Cuomo, who she now aims to defeat in the race for mayor. Speaker Adams won the three-way Democratic primary race for the seat by approximately 670 votes.

While the speaker now faces an uphill battle to quickly get her name out to voters and raise a significant amount of money after her opponents have already been doing so for months, it’s not as though she’s not faced long odds before.

The speaker wasn’t seen as a top contender to lead the Council in 2022 but emerged in the final weeks of the race as its front runner. Behind the scenes, a group of Democratic councilmembers began to coalesce around her candidacy and against her main opponent, Queens Councilmember Francisco Moya, who was picked by the mayor to lead the legislature. Speaker Adams won handedly.

Since her victory, the first-ever Black woman to serve as speaker has led the most diverse Council in the city’s history, often serving as a progressive foil to the mayor who has appeared to inch further to the right during his first three years in office – a recent Quinnipiac Poll showed the group of voters most approving of the mayor was Republicans. The speaker has sued the mayor twice over legislation passed by the Council that Mayor Adams has refused to implement and has been particularly critical of his budget priorities each year.

But while the Council she leads is one of the most progressive in history, the speaker herself appears to inch more toward the center. In the same Quinnipiac Poll – which was issued before the speaker officially entered the race – the now-mayoral candidate polled best with “somewhat liberal” voters – only 4 percent of all those polled said they’d cast their ballot for her.

The speaker, however, rejected the labeling during her State of the City address on Tuesday.

“Throughout my time in office, I've been labeled as a moderate in people's attempt to make sense of who I am,” Speaker Adams said. “But my focus has always been public service, which has no political label.”

The speaker will officially launch her campaign on Saturday from Rochdale Village, a housing co-op where Mayor Adams pulled in 70 percent of the vote during the 2021 Democratic primary. The majority Black voter base that lives there – and that turns out to the polls in high numbers – will be crucial to the speaker’s success. It’s also a group of voters that both the mayor and Cuomo hope to win over.

While the speaker will likely take a dent of voters away from the former governor, her entrance to the race is most damning for the mayor, whose support across the city has dwindled during his time in office, including in majority Black neighborhoods of Southeast Queens and Central Brooklyn that he once considered his base.

While the speaker has yet to roll out any official endorsements, several elected officials said prior to her announcement that they were excited about the idea of her entering the race.

“Adrienne has been a friend, a neighbor, a leader – we've known each other for almost two decades,” Queens Borough President Donovan Richards told the Eagle last week. “I hold her in the highest regards…and I think she'll run a competitive race.”

Richards, who endorsed Mayor Adams in 2021 and has a longtime relationship with Cuomo, has yet to issue a formal endorsement in the race.

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who has previously issued his support in the race for Comptroller Brad Lander, said after the speaker’s State of the City address that it was “refreshing to hear from a leader who is focused on service rather than self, and effectiveness rather than ego.”

But even if the speaker were to begin bringing in major endorsements, she still would have to hustle for the most important resource in a mayoral campaign – cash. With only around $211,000 in her campaign account, the speaker will have to begin fundraising quickly to compete with her opponents, many of whom have been bringing in money for months.

Crucial to any primary victory will be public matching funds, which the city hands out to candidates at an eight to one clip. In order to receive matching funds by April 15 – the next date the funds will be given out – the speaker would need to raise at least $250,000 from at least 1,000 New York City residents by March 17 – a little more than 10 days after her announcement. If the speaker were not to qualify for the upcoming deadline, the next round of matching funds won’t be dispersed until May 30, less than a month before the election.

Speaker Adams also first has to get on the ballot. Her campaign, which she has had to hastily bring together, has to collect at least 7,500 valid signatures from Democratic voters by April 3 in order to get a spot on the ballot.

But should she raise the funds, get the signatures and rack up the endorsements, Speaker Adams will still have to contend against the weight of history. No speaker of the Council has ever successfully run for mayor.

The Council’s first speaker, Queens Councilmember Peter Vallone, ran for governor and mayor, losing both races. His successor, Gillford Miller, unsuccessfully challenged Michael Bloomberg in 2005. Former Speaker Christine Quinn entered the 2013 mayoral Democratic primary as the frontrunner, but finished third in the primary won by Bill de Blasio. Melissa Mark-Viverito, Quinn’s successor, didn’t run for mayor but instead mounted a failed bid for public advocate. Speaker Adams’ predecessor, Corey Johnson, launched a brief bid for mayor before pulling out of the race. He later ran unsuccessfully for comptroller.

The Democratic primary will be held on June 24.