Addressing the latest swirl of rumors that he may soon pull the plug on his longshot reelection bid, Mayor Adams would only say Thursday his campaign has been playing “three dimensional chess” to figure out the best path forward as November’s contest looms.
“It takes a lot of strategy, this is three dimensional chess because the pieces are moving so rapidly,” Adams, who has consistently polled at the back of the pack in the mayoral race, told reporters in Brooklyn when asked why his reelection effort appears to be struggling to gain momentum.
Adams last weekend stopped holding any public campaign events after a streak of almost daily appearances. The hiatus, which is now running on almost a week, has touched off fresh speculation that Adams could be preparing to drop out of the race, as sources say his inner circle has been in talks with President Trump’s team about getting a job in his administration in exchange for suspending his reelection bid.
Sources say Trump’s team has been seeking to get Adams out of the race in order to maximize the chances of Andrew Cuomo, who is, like the incumbent, running as an independent against Democratic front-runner Zohran Mamdani.
Cuomo, who has polled as the most potent threat to Mamdani, has called the idea that Trump wants hom to win as “baloney.” He did, however, comfirm Thursday in an interview with the New York Times that he recently spoke to Frank Carone, the mayor’s campaign head . The ex-governor didn’t say in the interview what they spoke about.
“Ask him,” Carone told the Daily News when asked what he spoke to Cuomo about.
A Cuomo spokesman didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
At Thursday’s press conference in Brooklyn, Adams continued to insist he’s staying in the race while also not categorically ruling out the possibility of withdrawing, a position he has often reiterated amid the ongoing sepcualtion about his political future.
Elaborating on his comment about engaging in strategy talks lately, Adams said: “My team has been sitting down the last few weeks and said: How do we strategize? Let’s win this court case…and that’s what we’re doing, we’re planning the strategy of this, and we’re going to continue to forge ahead.”
The court case in question is the Adams campaign’s effort to try to get a judge to overturn the Campaign Finance Board’s decision to withhold million of dollars in public matching funds from him due to issues raised in his corruption indictment, which was dismissed by the Trump administration this spring as part of a controversial deal.
Besides Adams, Trump and business leaders concerned about a Mamdani mayoralty have also tried to offer Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa a job or other perks in exchange for a commitment to step out of the race. On Wednesday, Sliwa even said on CNBC that “emissaries” of wealthy business people have offered to give him a substantial amount of cash if he drops out.
“No one has ever offered me money to leave the race and we would not accept it if it was offered,” Adams said Thursday when asked if he has gotten any such offers before adding:
“That is not how we run politics in this city”