New York Mayor Adams officially announces reelection bid alongside Jewish community leaders

New York City Mayor Eric Adams officially announces his reelection bid in a press conference at City Hall.

The announcement comes after democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman from Queens, won a stunning upset over former governor Andrew Cuomo in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary. Mamdani is a member of the far-left Democratic Socialists of America and a harsh critic of Israel, while Adams is a firm supporter of Israel with long ties to Jewish communities.

Adams highlights his experience in politics and as a police officer. Mamdani, 33, was elected to the state assembly in 2021 and has a relatively thin resume.

“They have a record of tweets, I have a record on these streets, a record of results,” Adams says.

He vows to protect houses of worship.

“When hate appears in our community, it doesn’t matter if it’s our Sikh members, our Jewish members, our Christian members,” he says. “I’m there front and center, leading.”

“This diversity, everything from a yarmulke to a kuffi to a hijab, is why I am running for reelection,” he says.

He contrasts his working-class roots with Mamdani’s privileged upbringing. Adams was raised by a single mother in a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn, while Mamdani’s father is a Columbia University professor and his mother is an accomplished film director.

“This election is a choice between a candidate with a blue collar and one with a soup silver spoon, a choice between dirty fingernails and manicured nails,” he says. “It’s a choice between real progress and empty promises, a future for working people, not a fantasy state.”

“This is not a city where you use idealism to state you’re giving everything to everyone for free. There’s no dignity in giving everything for free. There’s dignity in giving you a job so you can provide for your family,” he says. “This is not a city of handouts, this is a city of hands up.”

There is some heckling in the crowd that is drowned out by chants of “Four more years.”

He is introduced by religious representatives, including Orthodox community leader Rabbi Moshe Melamed and Mijal Bitton, a Sephardic Jew from Manhattan’s Downtown Minyan.

Melamed highlights the community’s strong ties with Adams and his administration.

“Our community has gone through very, very trying times, and only through this relationship with the mayor and his fabulous team have we managed,” he says.

Bitton, an immigrant from Argentina, says she has seen what happens “when socialist promises collapse economies and destroy lives.”

“I want us to walk freely in our streets, to pray in our houses of worship, to raise families in peace, and I say this as an American Jew who understands that Jewish safety is tied to the safety of my neighbors,” she says.