Mayor Eric Adams declared Thursday he will be skipping the Democratic primary in June and running for reelection as an independent candidate in November.
The announcement came just hours after the federal corruption case against the mayor was permanently dismissed . In a brief video announcing the decision, the mayor said the case made it impossible to mount a run in the June primary.
“The dismissal of the bogus campaign against me dragged on too long, making it impossible to mount a primary campaign,” the mayor said. “I will forego the Democratic primary for mayor and appeal directly to all New Yorkers as an independent candidate.”
The deadline to submit petitions to appear on the ballot is Thursday night. The mayor claims he received 25,000 signatures in his video and his decision to skip the primary was to offer independent leadership.
The mayor’s decision, first reported by Politico, follows the final chapter in his corruption and bribery case, which a federal judge finally tossed Wednesday. The Trump administration tried to dismiss the charges without prejudice — meaning they could bring them back at any time. Judge Dale Ho rejected that notion and dismissed the case permanently.
Adams has argued the case was politically motivated, brought by the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan under former President Joe Biden, because the mayor criticized Biden’s immigration policy. Nevertheless he acknowledged he’d made mistakes.
“I know that accusations leveled against me may have shaken your confidence,” Adams said. “You may rightly have questions about my conduct. Let me be clear, though the charges against me were fasle, I trusted people I shlould not have and I regret that.”
Adams was the first sitting mayor in the modern era to be criminally indicted, but he’s not the first to change parties for reelection. Mayor John Lindsay also went from being a Republican to running as an independent in the late 1960s. Mayor Mike Bloomberg declined to run as a Republican in 2009 for his third mayoral term.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated John Lindsay’s party affiliation.
This is a developing story and has been updated.
