The Queens Machine, Labor, & Adrienne Adams
Are local institutions enough to stop Andrew Cuomo?
In business, they are called monopolies; in electoral politics, they are called machines.
Across Urban America, these entities — concentrated in close-knit, residential communities, where “knowing your neighbors” is not a cliche, but a way of life — shaped political and civic-life for generations. In New York City, beginning with the days of Tammany Hall, political machines were sustained by patronage, civically-engaged volunteers, and the assiduous courting of new immigrant groups which helped replenish their ranks. Their activity emanated from clubhouses and storefronts, where an organizing presence in all aspects of neighborhood life was maintained year-round. Each borough’s County Democratic Party (with occasional bouts of Republican resurgence) became the locus of the local political ecosystem. Labor unions, the lifeblood of the electorate in a union-dense municipality, were incentivised to align with the incumbents who presided over their contracts, while providing the necessary foot soldiers so their allies could continually prevail in traditionally, low-turnout primary elections.
Across New York City’s mosaic, different domains emerged, each with similar ambitions to consolidate power in their respective neighborhood, district, or borough. Slowly but surely, a city once dominated by the “three I’s” — Ireland, Italy, Israel — diversified in the post-war era. Reformers, largely white college-graduates from out-of-state with liberal politics (first in Greenwich Village, then Brownstone Brooklyn), banded together to fight the nascent establishment. Blacks in Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Puerto Ricans in the South Bronx, soon challenged for their seat at the table; followed by Dominicans in Washington Heights, and Caribbeans in Flatbush. Italians Carmine De Sapio and Meade Esposito soon gave way to either white-collar professionals or the Black and Brown working and middle-class. Ethnic successions, the ethos of New York City, shifted power between neighborhoods, almost never without a fight at the ballot box. Some, like Harlem’s “Gang of Four” — Percy Sutton, Basil Patterson, Charlie Rangel, David Dinkins — eventually found themselves “on the inside.” The triumph of the latter, David Dinkins, in the 1989 Mayoral race behind a “Rainbow Coalition,” represented a breakthrough for the labor movement (a majority of union members in the five boroughs were now racial minorities) and Black and Latino political power (who soon controlled county organizations in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn), two ascendant forces consistently derided by Ed Koch during his three divisive terms. Like Harold Washington in Chicago, the “Rainbow Coalition” had out-organized their competition and dramatically seized power in City Hall.
However, under the weight of record-breaking crime, complicated by the specter of race in a segregated and economically-divided municipality, the “Rainbow Coalition” buckled, at least, enough for the sitting Mayor to narrowly lose reelection. In the following years, the labor coalition that swept Dinkins into office began to fracture, with defections and deference to Rudy Guliani and Michael Bloomberg. Democrats, amidst feuding fiefdoms and the continued decline of social capital in a city increasingly defined as a “luxury” product, struggled to motivate and mobilize their working-class base, losing five-consecutive Mayoral elections. Mayor Bloomberg may have been outnumbered when comparing Republicans to Democrats, but the businessman built a political machine of his own, sourced from his vast wealth. The declining political capital of the county machines (Democrats controlled Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn) was no match for the vast financial capital of Michael Bloomberg.
Even when Bill de Blasio recaptured City Hall, and breathed life into a moribund Democratic electorate, labor unions were the catalyst — while the impotent county machines prematurely hitched their wagons to Christine Quinn and Bill Thompson, who lacked support among rank-and-file voters. And, when selecting the Speaker of the City Council, historically a game of insider-baseball where county organizations, capable of shepherding a bloc of aligned Council Members behind their chosen candidate, flexed their muscle — the popular Mayor-elect, his labor allies, and the newly-minted Progressive Caucus prevailed in the ensuing power struggle.
Not only did the proverbial county “machines” fail to deliver at the ballot-box, they were outflanked behind-closed-doors, calling into question their ultimate influence.
However, even amidst this nadir, the impact of one borough’s leader, “The King of Queens,” was never questioned.
Rep. Joe Crowley, whose nickname invoked his ironclad grip on the political proceedings of his borough, was not so much from a place, as he was from a time: an old-school party boss whose power exceeded his outer borough contemporaries. In the deep-blue borough of Queens, Crowley and company masterfully monopolized ballot access, while installing elected officials through county committee appointments and hand-picking the judges tasked with overseeing the aforementioned process. Political patronage, while not at its twentieth century heyday, was funneled through Surrogate’s Court to a handful of county-aligned attorneys. When it was time to whip votes behind-closed-doors for Council Speaker, Crowley never failed to deliver the Queens delegation, which proved decisive in elevating both Christine Quinn and Corey Johnson. Indeed, having a viable political career in the World’s Borough, let alone New York City, meant bending the knee to the “King of Queens.”
Thus, when a twenty-eight year old bartender from the Parkchester section of the Bronx, announced plans to challenge Crowley, few observers took note of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Almost every elected official, along with the largest labor unions in the five boroughs, rallied behind the “King of Queens.” However, in the immigrant neighborhoods of New York’s 14th Congressional District, in addition to the gentrifying enclaves of Western Queens, there was profound weakness at the heart of Crowley’s operation.
Indeed, the influx of new arrivals — from Transplants (majority college-educated, born in the United States) to Immigrants (predominantly working-class, from Puerto Rico, Latin America, and South Asia) — lacked any tangible connection to the “political establishment.” Once, political machines had replenished their ranks by cultivating new immigrant groups, in an effort to preempt any future power struggles. Now, they were ignored — at the incumbent’s peril. Untethered to establishment politics, new arrivals also lacked strong ties to the machine’s most potent arm: labor. Many of the district’s white-collar professionals and low-wage workers were not public sector union employees — severing them from the fulcrum of the Democratic establishment. And, in the ideological era of Bernie Sanders, even those with union cards held additional considerations at the ballot-box that would often trump the preferences of labor leaders whom they had never met. On June 26th, 2018, the “King of Queens” was decisively defeated in an upset that shocked the nation.
The Joe Crowley coalition, totaling a paltry forty-three percent of the vote, revealed the extent of institutional weakness. Ocasio-Cortez crushed Crowley, thoroughly, across Western Queens (Astoria, Sunnyside), owed to the rising population of progressive millennials moving into the aforementioned neighborhoods. However, Crowley was also defeated in every precinct adjacent to Roosevelt Avenue, the primary thoroughfare connecting the immigrant communities of Jackson Heights and Corona. While the Bronx Democratic Party, controlled by rival State Senator Jeff Klein, did little to save the sinking Crowley, the “King of Queens” defeat was most-pronounced in the borough where he (allegedly) reigned. The institutions supporting Joe Crowley, essentially a “who’s who” of New York politics (the Governor, New York City Mayor, both U.S. Senators, eleven House Representatives, thirty trade unions, thirty-one local elected officials), could only deliver majorities among middle-class Black: homeowners (East Elmhurst), renters (Lefrak City), and cooperators (Parkchester); coupled with a handful of white ethnic enclaves (Pelham Gardens, Country Club) and gated-communities (Edgewater Park, Silver Beach) — uncoincidentally, some of the most union-dense precincts in the Bronx and Queens.
The following year, progressive insurgents smelled blood, and rallied around public defender Tiffany Cabán in the Democratic Primary for Queens District Attorney. Suddenly, the once-vaunted “Queens Machine” had all the makings of a paper tiger. Reeling from Crowley’s stunning defeat, now under the stewardship of Rep. Gregory Meeks, “county” backed Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, a longtime ally of the party. However, as Katz saw her early lead evaporate, the machine retreated to their leader’s home base, Southeast Queens, home to thousands of triple-prime union members and the epicenter of New York’s Black middle-class.
In Western Queens, the vanguard emerged.
In Southeast Queens, the old guard remained.
And, following a contentious recount process that dragged into July, Melinda Katz prevailed by a razor-thin margin of sixty votes. While Cabán swept Western Queens (earning as much as seventy-five percent of the vote in the 36th Assembly District), improving upon Ocasio-Cortez’s margins from the previous cycle, she lost every Assembly District east of Flushing Meadows Park. However, the bevy of Katz’s support did not come from her native-Forrest Hills (which she represented in both the State Assembly and City Council), but from Southeast Queens.
In her own neighborhood — where Melinda Katz had lived her entire life — the Queens Borough President only achieved a five-point plurality. In fact, when Katz ran for Comptroller ten years earlier, the 28th Assembly District (Forest Hills, Rego Park, Kew Gardens) was the only district she won. In the aforementioned contest, Katz was crushed throughout Southeast Queens by Flushing City Councilman John Liu, who earned approximately fifty-five percent of the vote with Queens’ Black middle-class.
For it was John Liu, not Melinda Katz, who had the support of the Queens Machine.
Ten years later, the machine was not only with Melinda Katz — they were all in, along with labor and nearly every elected official in Queens, particularly those who, instinctually, feared retribution should they decide otherwise. “Sure, Tiffany Cabán has Bernie Sanders and AOC, but what good would they do in Eastern Queens?” Indeed, with conservative prosecutor Gregory Lasak in the race, Cabán’s path-to-victory relied on Lasak eating into Katz’s margins with white homeowners. “Yes, The New York Times Editorial Board endorsed Cabán, but how many of the board members actually live in Queens?” Undoubtedly, momentum was with the opposition.
Who could pull out their people to vote in a sleepy off-year election? Would labor, the church circuit, and two decades in elected office be enough?
In Southeast Queens, to the tune of fifty-five percent, it was enough.
For Melinda Katz, a decade made all the difference.
However, the Queens Machine had played one final, under-discussed card. On the Friday before the Primary, Eastern Queens Council Member Rory Lancman abruptly dropped out and endorsed Katz, despite his well-documented scorn for the frontrunner, and affinity for the underdog reformer.
“Lancman backed the candidate he has most consistently attacked throughout the race. ‘With all due respect to everybody on their experiences, their positions, their views, there are only two criminal justice reformers in this race, and that is me and Miss Cabán,’ Lancman said at a recent candidate forum… He also ran ads going after Katz, who is seen as the establishment candidate running on her decades in elected office as well as her longstanding ties to local organizations and elected officials in the borough. Lancman called Katz’s position on cash bail a ‘sham’ and a ‘cruel joke’ in a tweet posted in April.” (POLITICO)
Rory Lancman’s eleventh-hour withdrawal allowed Katz to bank several hundreds of votes from Orthodox Jews in Kew Garden Hills, well beyond her sixty vote margin-of-victory, that would have otherwise gone to Lancman, the local Council Member. The following year, Lancman resigned from the City Council to work for Governor Cuomo as his Special Counsel for Ratepayer Protection. Not for nothing, Andrew Cuomo was a longstanding ally of Melinda Katz.
A second consecutive high-profile defeat would have spurred an onslaught of questions. For months, the contest was framed as an “existential” threat to the machine’s political power. If it could happen in Queens, the most diverse county in the United States, it could happen anywhere. Instead, the “Queens Machine” lived to fight another day.
Among voters in neighborhoods like Astoria and Ridgewood, the “Queens Machine” was shorthand for everything wrong with politics. “County,” insider shorthand for the establishment they were dead-set on toppling, was nothing more than a moribund institution solely focused on maintaining control over their diminishing empire. However, in Southeast Queens, voters did not see a political machine, but a close-knit community. Seniors, the heart and soul of the Black electorate, held particular affinity for those familiar faces, whose paths (and that of their parents, children, and cousins) had crossed many times over. Here, where middle-class families had achieved a sacred balance of stability and affordability, respect for property, safety, and the American Dream were shared virtues — regardless if one’s forefathers came from the Deep South or the Caribbean Islands. They did not look at their elected officials with cynicism or scorn, nor as merely names who routinely appeared on their ballots, but as neighbors they knew — from the Community Board, Congregation, Union Hall, or Democratic Club.
This story, once a hallmark of political life in New York City throughout the 20th Century, has slowly become a relic of an era passed by.
Nevertheless, such is the story of Adrienne Adams.
Unlike her classmate Eric Adams — the two attended Bayside High School together in the late 1970’s, the product of school busing that shuttled Black students from working-class Southeast Queens to the upper-middle class, predominantly White neighborhood of Bayside — Adrienne did not foray into political arena until thirty years thereafter. Following an appointment by Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, Adams’ entrance into local politics was reminiscent of a path taken by many who came before: The Community Board. Here, amidst “extreme chaos,” she proved to be a quick study. Praised for navigating educational and economic bureaucracy, Adams ascended to Chair the Board within three years. Her professionalism caught the eye of Melinda Katz (appointment to the Board of Trustees of the Queens Public Library) and Governor Andrew Cuomo (Local Planning Committee for the Jamaica Downtown Revitalization Initiative), who rewarded Adams with placement on several neighborhood initiatives. Most consequentially, “County,” eager to develop aligned candidates, took a keen interest in Adrienne Adams, who had “paid [her] dues.”
Soon thereafter, renegade State Senator James Sanders Jr, a frequent thorn in the side of the Queens Machine, announced plans to challenge Rep. Gregory Meeks. Adrienne Adams, with “County” uniformly behind her, would undoubtedly coast into his vacant State Senate seat.
Despite an ethics investigation from the FBI and lending support to the (labor opposed) Trans-Pacific Partnership, Adams and “County” rallied behind the incumbent Congressman. For decades, both Meeks and Adams attended the same parish, Greater Allen AME Cathedral, a Methodist Church on Merrick Boulevard. In a lesson on the power of relational politics, Southeast Queens’ Congressman prior to Meeks, the Reverend Floyd Flake, was the senior pastor at Greater Allen AME, whose congregation exceeded twenty-three thousand members, one of the largest in New York City. This network of parishioners not only encompassed Southeast Queens, but stretched into Brooklyn, the Bronx and even Nassau County — while spanning generations of New York’s Black diaspora.
However, following a series of “hits” (negative articles placed by opponents) published in the New York Post, Sanders abruptly quit his Congressional bid, and vowed to run for re-election to the State Senate. Nonetheless, “County” did not withdraw their previously pledged support to Adrienne Adams, and, in fact, sensed a golden opportunity to permanently rid themselves of Sanders, who twice bucked the bosses on Presidential endorsements (Obama ‘08, Sanders ‘16) and had no qualms with challenging the local political patron.
Now the underdog, Adams swiftly went negative, citing her opponent’s “ethical lapses”, poor relationships with colleagues, and how the district’s “quality of life [had] deteriorated.” Letitia “Tish” James, whom Adrienne described as both a mentor and source of inspiration, endorsed her — along with the full-complement of county-aligned elected officials (including Crowley, Meeks, and Flake). Nevertheless, the machine’s dominance was rooted in controlling ballot access, not winning closely-contested elections against well-liked incumbents. Adams was rushing to introduce herself to voters far outside her neighborhood, or the domain of Community Board Twelve. The political institutions in her corner, even if their surname was “Crowley,” could not instantaneously make Adrienne Adams known in Far Rockaway or Richmond Hill. Sanders may have been perceived as a wild-card in the eyes of the local political class, but the State Senator’s constituents vouched for him.
Adrienne Adams may have been in the good graces of the Queens Machine, but James Sanders Jr. had the goodwill of Democratic voters, who saw no need to cast him out of office.
Institutions, alone, could not singlehandedly crown her.
Nonetheless, Adrienne Adams would not have to wait long for another opportunity.
Less than one year later, City Council Member Ruben Wills was convicted on corruption charges, triggering an immediate expulsion. “County” would need to find a replacement, and quickly. Without hesitation, the Queens Machine coalesced around Adrienne Adams, once again. Tapped as the frontrunner, Adams was by no means a shoe-in.
Two candidates — Hettie Powell and Richard David — had already entered the race, smelling blood in the water after Wills was indicted years earlier. Both had raised six-figures, and boasted their own ties to the 28th Council District, a stretch of middle-class Black and Asian residential neighborhoods bisected by the Van Wyck Expressway; the progressive Powell was supported by the Working Families Party and 1199 SEIU, while the moderate David was favored to sweep the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean half of the district.
In a close contest, much of the political establishment rallied behind Adrienne Adams — from familiar allies like Crowley, Katz, Meeks, Flake and 32BJ to several police unions (Detectives Endowment Association, Captains Endowment Association, Lieutenants Benevolent Association, Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association). Even Governor Andrew Cuomo bestowed the Council-hopeful with a rare endorsement.
Adams and Powell, both Black, hailed from the middle-class Black neighborhoods east of the Van Wyck — Jamaica and Rochdale Village — where voter turnout was traditionally higher, compared to the immigrant-heavy precincts west of the Expressway; enclaves that Adams and Powell virtually conceded to David, and vice versa. On Election Day, Adrienne Adams prevailed by less than seven-hundred votes.
“County” had been loyal to Ruben Wills, so much so that when the Council Member was first indicted, the Queens Machine still endorsed him for re-election prior to his expulsion. Now, they had ensured that one of their own would succeed him in the Council, and never looked back. Even when Wills returned four years later, fully exonerated (his conviction was reversed, charges dismissed with prejudice), “County” had no reason to pull the rug out from Adrienne Adams, who easily won reelection to a second term.
By then, Adams’ attention had moved onto more challenging pursuits; namely, becoming the next Speaker of the New York City Council.
However, she faced long odds. Justin Brannan of Bay Ridge, Keith Powers of the Upper East Side, and Carlina Rivera of the East Village were seen as the initial top contenders. “County” was still behind Adrienne, but the organization once fundamental to success in the closed-door nature of the Speaker’s race was now considered an afterthought. Joe Crowley, who had crowned both Corey Johnson and Christine Quinn, was no more. His replacement, Gregory Meeks, enjoyed a fraction of the political capital once held by his predecessor, and was only months removed from endorsing Citigroup executive Ray McGuire over soon-to-be Mayor Eric Adams (in Meeks’ Congressional District, Adams received 58.5% to McGuire’s 3.7%).
Nonetheless, with thirty-five incoming members, many of whom were untethered to the brokering of old, there was an unpredictable element to the behind-the-scenes campaign.
And, amidst a political vacuum, there was opportunity.
Opportunity recognized by Adams — Eric Adams.
The Mayor-elect, at what proved to be the zenith of his popularity, attempted to boost a close-ally, Queens Council Member Francisco Moya (Corona, East Elmhurst), into the second-most powerful position in city government. However, in tapping someone with relatively little standing amongst his colleagues, old or new, Eric Adams significantly overplayed his hand.
Suddenly, the Mayor, already viewed skeptically by many of the freshmen, had inserted himself into the proceedings, choosing a proxy in Moya, who was neither known nor liked. Furthermore, organized labor — specifically, the “Labor Strong” coalition — which had expended considerable resources to elect dozens of Council Members, were, despite their closeness to the Mayor, not keen on Speaker Francisco Moya.
As the Mayor’s allies pressed Council Members on Moya’s inevitability — “get on board before it’s too late” — implying hesitation or defection would result in losing out on plum committee assignments, those weary of an Eric Adams power-grab attempted to find a “compromise” candidate: someone with a strong relationship to labor, well-respected by the other Speaker contenders (so as to facilitate their dropout, and transfer of support), and amenable to both progressives and county machines in the Bronx and Queens.
Enter, at the eleventh-hour, Adrienne Adams.
Nevermind that Adrienne had endorsed Eric months earlier, and that the two unions (32BJ, DC37) most integral to the latter becoming Mayor were now eschewing his wishes, to instead support the former in her quest to become Speaker. According to POLITICO, a “frenzied” vote-whipping effort on behalf of Adams was spearheaded by “CWA District 1, the New York State Nurses Association, former rivals Justin Brannan, Keith Powers and county political leaders State Senator Jamaal Bailey in the Bronx and Rep. Gregory Meeks in Queens.” Among the eleven Queens Council Members, Adrienne Adams support was unanimous (save for Moya himself). In the Bronx, she won seven of eight members. In Brooklyn, from Darlene Mealy to Alexa Avilés, Adrienne Adams dominated across the delegation (Moya received a sole vote from Ari Kagan). While the county machines had helped crown the Speaker once again, their role, in a new era of New York City politics, was far more supplementary — to both labor and a collective desire to reject both Eric Adams and Francisco Moya (for ideological, personal, and procedural reasons). Despite the efforts of the former, two classmates from Bayside High School (Class of ‘78!) would be leading New York City: Mayor Eric Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.
Accommodating several political factions, whose interests aligned for a fleeting moment in time, Adrienne Adams had assembled a heterodox coalition (behind-the-scenes, not in the voting booth), and prevailed against an opponent that her allies rallied with great urgency to stop.
Four years later, will history repeat itself?
Indeed, a New York City Council Speaker has never become Mayor — and for good reason. Why?
For one, the entirety of the Council’s actions — fair or unfair — can be laid at the Speaker’s feet. Christine Quinn, for instance, could never recover from helping Michael Bloomberg secure a controversial third term, much to the delight of Bill de Blasio, who bludgeoned Quinn’s tacit support for the Republican Mayor in the following Democratic Primary. While Adrienne Adams has always been a pro-business moderate, she will nonetheless be criticized (from all sides) for shepherding modest reforms through the Council — from outdoor dining to policing. Indeed, the daughter of a corrections officer, once endorsed by the Police Benevolent Association, will undoubtedly be assailed for passing the “How Many Stops” Act, the City Council to eliminate the NYPD’s “Criminal Groups Database,” and repeated clashes with the Mayor over banning solitary confinement. The right will criticize Adams for supporting non-citizen voting in municipal elections; the left will fault the Speaker for rolling back outdoor dining provisions. Asian constituencies (and Andrew Cuomo), will seize on her past comments calling for “dramatic reform” of the SHSAT, and on-the-record “opposition” to the existing entrance exam for specialized high schools. The good, the bad, and the ugly of the polarizing City of Yes rezoning will be tied to Adrienne Adams at every turn.
Not to mention, the Speaker’s influence on the most controversial annual item: the city budget. Indeed, all of the budget cuts to libraries and schools, for years laid at the feet of Eric Adams with the political weight of an anvil, will now form the crux of questions directed to Adrienne Adams, candidate for Mayor. Reductions to the NYPD’s budget (due to a shortfall from decreased federal funds) coupled with efforts to curtail runaway overtime spending, will be cynical conflated with “defund”; nevermind that Adams was one of the Black Council Members most vocal to Speaker Johnson that her constituents, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, nonetheless did not want the police budget cut. Speaking of, the aforementioned budget fallout sank Corey Johnson, almost single-handedly spurring his withdrawal from the Mayoral race, while continuing to haunt him even after he re-emerged and ran for Comptroller.
Additionally, the City Council Speaker’s constituency, absent the Council Members they preside over, is no greater than any other member — approximately one-hundred and forty thousand residents of each respective district, only fifteen thousand of whom, in the case of Adrienne Adams, even voted in the previous Democratic Primary for Mayor.
In short, being Speaker presents all the pitfalls of a citywide elected official, without any of the profile. Peter Vallone led the Council for fifteen years, and couldn’t exceed twenty-percent in a citywide primary — unable to build support beyond his native-Astoria, and a smattering of white ethnic communities in Queens, Southern Brooklyn and Staten Island. Gifford Miller finished a distant fourth, failing to win a single Assembly District — a fate that also befell Christine Quinn eight years later. With less than four months to Primary Day, Adrienne Adams remains relatively unknown outside of her Council District.
For decades, those who led the New York City Council found out — the hard way — that charming the power brokers who controlled the insider-baseball proceedings of the “Speaker’s Race” proved far different (and ultimately more difficult) than winning over the hearts-and-minds of rank-and-file Democratic voters.
Nonetheless, despite these well-documented pitfalls, many of the Council’s most-ambitious members continued to jockey for the top position. All of Vallone, Miller, Quinn, and Johnson were seen as early Mayoral contenders, if not outright frontrunners; ultimate ambitions they did little to conceal from the moment they assumed the second-most powerful position in municipal government. Each began with a sizable lead, which, in the cutthroat world of New York City politics, is a dangerous game, one that routinely buries candidates — Quinn, Spitzer, Yang — who collapse after months of unrelenting attacks from the rest of the field.
This year, former Governor Andrew Cuomo is the early frontrunner, boasting near universal name recognition. Whereas Adrienne Adams, thus far, polls below five percent.
However, the Cuomo camp, privately, remains concerned about the Speaker. With the Mayor electorally irrelevant, Adrienne Adams is poised to emerge as the only candidate, at this juncture, who can pose a serious challenge to Andrew Cuomo for the votes of Black New Yorkers. Her ties to labor, county organizations, and the Black political class — many of whom are not keen on Cuomo’s comeback — are deep. Unlike the former Governor, whose bully persona has been well-documented, the Speaker remains well-respected across a variety of political networks. Over the next several months, Andrew Cuomo will, unless absolutely necessary, avoid directly criticizing the Speaker — fearful of replicating the infamous Carl McCall debacle — and stoking the racial politics that bubbles beneath the surface of the five boroughs. Instead, Cuomo will lean on surrogates to strongarm elected officials and labor unions. “See, she still can’t even crack ten-percent. Get on board before it’s too late.” Under the pressure of Andrew Cuomo, amidst the ever-present threat of eventual retaliation, patience gives way to fear rather quickly. Were Adrienne Adams to struggle building momentum, there would be no greater benefactor than Andrew Cuomo.
Perhaps, the same conditions that led to Speaker Adams — a landscape favoring compromise in the name of stopping a polarizing candidate from consolidating political power amidst a vacuum — could lead to Mayor Adams.
For Adrienne Adams, running for Mayor was never part of the plan. Save for this perfect storm of conditions, the Speaker would be preparing for retirement; hosting her eleven grandchildren at her single-family home in Jamaica, rather than meeting with commissioners in Gracie Mansion.
While her late entrance should do little to diminish the standing of Brad Lander and Zohran Mamdani, it provides the final death-knell to Eric Adams — mortally wounded from a devastating five months of indictments and resignations, which culminated in Governor Kathy Hochul almost removing the disgraced Mayor from office following an explosive quid pro quo allegation levied by the interim US attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Following the Mayor’s descent into the MAGA-verse, the landscape was primed for Zellnor Myrie, a liberal State Senator from vote-rich Central Brooklyn, to finally break out. Black leaders had moved on from Adams, and were looking for an alternative to Cuomo. Myrie, flush with more than two million dollars in matching funds, had recently nabbed endorsements from both Rep. Dan Goldman and anti-corruption czar Zephyr Teachout, and, following some well-executed visibility as Donald Trump and Elon Musk dismembered federal bureaucracy (while reminding voters of Andrew Cuomo’s silence on the matter), appeared to be genuinely building momentum after a lackluster start to his campaign. However, many leaders — particularly in Southeast Queens, Harlem, and the Bronx — remained reluctant to back Myrie’s effort, preferring to draft Adrienne Adams instead, despite the Speaker having a fraction of the State Senator’s warchest, and similarly low name recognition across the five boroughs.
“Myrie is the top Black candidate in the mayoral race apart from Eric Adams, but his progressive record in Albany and relatively low profile have left some would-be Adrienne Adams supporters hoping for an alternative.
‘I just think a lot of people are like ‘who?’ said the consultant, who’s friendly with Adrienne Adams. “It’s like, ‘where’s the thing? This is the Eric Adams alternative?’
Myrie’s campaign declined to comment.” (POLITICO)
His colleague, State Senator Jessica Ramos, has a “vanishingly small path to victory” after failing to qualify for the previous matching funds disbursement. When Ramos entered the race in the fall, the Chair of Labor in the State Senate was betting that enough unions, eventually, would desert the unviable incumbent and back their legislative ally. However, that calculus predated the specter of Andrew Cuomo, who has already nabbed the Carpenters, and appears on the verge of winning over 1199 SEIU, the influential healthcare workers union. Now, it appears that many of the unions who ultimately eschew the polarizing frontrunner will give first consideration to the Speaker.
As the kids say, “it’s getting late early.”
Speaker Adams, “begged” to enter the race during the annual Caucus Weekend retreat in Albany, will immediately appeal to elements of the political class that have, thus far, struggled to find a strong candidate to coalesce around — particularly the politically moderate, labor-aligned, pro-business interests who hail from working-and-middle class Black and Latino neighborhoods. These institutions and individuals view Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander (despite the latter’s attempts to moderate his image) as too left-leaning, but see Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos as less viable by the day. They’ve known Scott Stringer for decades, but remain skeptical of his chances; “he’s losing club endorsements on the Upper West Side for christsake.” Many supported Eric Adams four years ago, but now recognize (a little late in the author’s estimation) the Mayor is finished. A majority are weary of Andrew Cuomo, despite the former Governor’s sustained resonance in their respective districts, preferring he forever abscond from political life, but have lacked an alternative to unite behind — until now.
However, the compressed timeline — less than four months until Primary Day — affords little margin for error. Adams will be tied-up with her day job as City Council Speaker, lacking time to aggressively fundraise or criss-cross the five boroughs introducing herself to voters. She will be heavily reliant upon a hastily assembled campaign team to make up for lost time.
Already, the Adams campaign is on the clock — and not because they need to collect 7,500 valid signatures of Democratic Primary voters by April 3rd to gain ballot access. No, the far greater challenge would be qualification for the public matching funds program (nothing short of essential to ultimate success). To receive a disbursement on April 15th, Adams would need to raise at least $250,000 from New York City residents (where only the first $250 of said donation counted towards the aforementioned total) from no less than 1,000 New York City donors by March 17th.
If that sounds like a lot of money, coming primarily from small dollar donors, that is because it is! Thus far, only four candidates — Brad Lander, Scott Stringer, Zohran Mamdani, and Zellnor Myrie — have received disbursements. Lander and Stringer have, literally, been fundraising for years. Myrie began raising money in May and just received his first disbursement ($2.2M). Zohran Mamdani was the fastest candidate to qualify; announcing on October 23rd, and well-surpassing the thresholds by January 15th.
Nevertheless, Mamdani still had three months — not two weeks.
Were Adrienne Adams to fall short of qualification by March 17th, her next opportunity would come on May 23rd (disbursement May 30th), giving her only twenty-five days to spend the lionshare of her funds. Unlike Andrew Cuomo, who will benefit from seven-figure Independent Expenditures (potentially bankrolled, in part, by the former Governor’s eight-million dollar state campaign account) boosting his candidacy, Adrienne Adams will be largely reliant upon the matching funds program to build her viability as the campaign wears on. Organized labor, already warm to her candidacy, will only unleash the full-extent of their considerable resources if the Speaker is viable in the final weeks of the campaign. To ensure her success, the institutions and networks which drafted Adams into the race will have to expeditiously race money on her behalf — either through a small-dollar donor network that unlocks matching funds or larger, non-matchable contributions and well-funded, aligned political action committees.
If they can successfully do so, Adrienne Adams has the contours to build a winning coalition at the ballot-box on June 24th: a moderate reputation forged in outer borough politics; close ties to labor when several of the city’s largest unions are struggling to settle on a candidate; relationships to real estate and business interests; enough credibility with the Progressive Caucus to represent a departure from the status quo of Eric Adams; and the opportunity to coalesce significant segments of the Black establishment against Andrew Cuomo.
The latter, coupled with the notion that were Adrienne Adams to emerge from the crowded field, it would come at the expense of Andrew Cuomo’s prohibitive lead, has the potential to expose deep and dormant divisions in the Black community — while bringing racial politics to the forefront, a challenging dynamic for Cuomo that harkens back to his disastrous 2002 campaign for Governor. However, while power brokers remain skeptical of Cuomo, he continues to poll well with Black and Latino voters, particularly amongst seniors, who remain the least troubled by his misconduct. Were the scandal-scarred former Governor to prevail over the Speaker, despite the best efforts of various institutions to the contrary; a considerable disconnect, between rank-and-file Democrats and the whims of the political class, would be revealed.
Furthermore, Adrienne Adams’ candidacy will stress test the very institutional powers that once dominated municipal politics in New York City. Without “County,” Adams would not have been elected to the City Council, but both her greatest failure (defeat to Sanders Jr.) and success (becoming Speaker) are a reflection of the limitations of “machine” politics. To become the next Mayor of New York City, Adrienne Adams will have to build a broad coalition that stretches far beyond the confines of said network. Charming the familiar faces of Rochdale Village and Springfield Gardens in her native-Queens will not be enough; to win, she will have to make inroads across the Bronx’s Co-op City, Harlem’s Esplanade Gardens, and Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field Apartments. The western side of the Van Wyck Expressway, which Adams did not need to win her City Council district, in addition to the many South Asian enclaves across the city, can no longer be taken for granted. Adams will need the unions — as validators, fundraisers, and operators — to build support with the generations of outer borough voters intimately familiar with the Cuomo family name.
While labor has routinely proved fundamental to victory in the Democratic Primary, the question remains what rank-and-file Democrats, increasingly disconnected from all facets of party leadership, have to say on June 24th?
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This was excellent. I’d love a similar deep dive into the last ~10 years of Democratic Party history in Brooklyn, if there’s a candidate/trend that helps sort of wrap it all together (or even if there isn’t!)
Incredibly thorough, thanks for writing. So fascinating to learn about.