Former anti-racism police officer Eric Adams won the New York City mayoralty on Tuesday in an extraordinary campaign. Growing up poor in Brooklyn and having committed minor offenses in his youth, he later became a politician in the Democratic Party. This position is considered the most sensitive in the United States after the presidency. The outgoing Democratic mayor Bill de Blasio will step down on December 31, with his popularity at an all-time low, although he managed, among other things, to steer a city of over 8 million residents out of the chaos of the pandemic that saw over 34,000 deaths.
NBC, CBS, and NY1 announced Adams as the race's winner shortly after the polls closed at 9:00 PM local time. According to unofficial results from the New York City Board of Elections, Adams is projected to receive more than 70 percent of the votes. Adams, 61, defeated his Republican opponent Curtis Sliwa, 67, as polls had predicted, thus becoming the second Black mayor in the history of the economic and cultural capital of the United States, following David Dinkins (1990-1993).
Polling stations in New York's five boroughs opened from 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM for about 5.5 million voters. According to the Board of Elections, approximately 170,000 people voted early from October 23 to 31. Turnout, which is difficult to predict, is typically low in local elections.
In the final days of a campaign focused on security issues, Adams faced off in a televised debate with his Republican opponent Sliwa, who still wore a red hat. Sliwa founded a type of "militia" called the "Guardian Angels" in 1979, which patrolled voluntarily to counter street assaults alongside the police. Sliwa criticized Adams for not meeting with police unions and for discussing crime control instead with former New York gang leaders. However, the former police officer pledged to be tough on crime and offenses that peaked in 2020 before easing this year. Adams also appears to be a determined leader and advocate for the middle and lower classes and a strong opponent of racial discrimination.
He joined the right-wing faction of the Democratic Party—unlike New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—and claims to have ties with New York's business circles, the financial hub of the world. The New York mayor manages the largest municipal budget in the United States, which reached $98.7 billion for the fiscal year 2021-2022, partially allocated for recovery from the health crisis. Like his predecessors, Adams will oversee the largest police force in the country (NYPD, with 36,000 personnel) while pursuing ongoing reforms.
Adams recalls his previous profession and has shared for years that when he committed a minor offense at age 15, he was violently apprehended, leading him to decide to "change the system from within." He became a police officer when New York was a dangerous place in the 1980s, serving for 22 years and achieving the rank of captain. In 1995, he established a union to combat racism. Throughout its history, the NYPD has often faced accusations of ignoring violent, racist, and corrupt officers. Legal actions were even taken against the police for suppressing anti-racism protests organized by the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 after George Floyd was killed by a white officer in Minneapolis.
In a city that paid a heavy price in the battle against the pandemic, Adams will also have to manage the reopening of schools, offices, and stores back to normal operations. Additionally, he will face challenges such as combating glaring social inequalities, poor housing, crumbling infrastructure, and climate risks, alongside plans to close Rikers Island, the overcrowded jail plagued by violence and poor health conditions.
After leaving the police in 2006, Adams was elected to the New York State Senate and then as President of Brooklyn, a platform that paved the way for his mayoral candidacy. Adams is also proud of having become a vegetarian in 2016 to address his diabetes and has published a cookbook to encourage African Americans to follow his lead.
