New York’s mayor-elect Adams: The working-class candidate who embraces big businesses

New Yorkers on Tuesday elected Eric Adams as their next mayor in a landslide election in which the Democrat trounced Republican challenger Curtis Sliwa.

Adams, a 61-year-old former police captain, will be the city’s 110th mayor and only the second Black man to lead the largest city in the United States — the first being Democrat David Dinkins, who was mayor from 1990 to 1993.

Adams’ campaign message centered on public safety, racial justice, overhauling government dysfunction and making New York a more business-friendly city.

“This campaign was for those who have been betrayed by their government,” said Adams as he greeted supporters Tuesday evening. “There is a covenant between government and the people of our city: You pay your taxes, we deliver your tax dollars through goods and services. We have failed to provide those goods and services — Jan. 1, that stops. That stops!”

Adam is set to begin his term in January as New York emerges from the coronavirus pandemic facing countless problems. Lots of businesses, including restaurants and those dependent upon tourism, are suffering. There is a serious lack of affordable housing and the city’s unemployment rate, which stood at 4% before the pandemic, is now nearly 10% — meaning millions of jobs that were lost during the pandemic have yet to return.

Who is Eric Adams?

Adams, one of six children raised by a working-class single mother, grew up in Queens, one of city’s most densely populated boroughs.

According to his campaign’s website, Adams’ unlikely political trajectory began at the age of 15 — when he was arrested and experienced police brutality at the hands of an officer who beat him while in custody.

Years later, when Adams was in his early 20s, he joined the New York Police Department (NYPD), where he worked as an officer for 20 years. In 1995, he co-founded 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, an advocacy group pushing for racial justice and speaking out against police brutality.

Shortly after his retirement from the NYPD, Adams ran for the New York State Senate in 2006 and was elected to represent central Brooklyn in Albany — he held the seat until 2013. In 2014, he became the first Black man ever elected president of the borough of Brooklyn.

Though he was officially affiliated with the Republican party from 1997 to 2001, he became a Democratic while he was a state senator. In 2009 and 2011, he came out in support equal marriage rights.

Adams, who is widely perceived as a centrist, has alternately described himself as “moderate” and “progressive.”

Critics view his transformation as evidence that he is an opportunist who alters his persona for political expediency.

During his campaign for mayor, Adams opted to appeal to groups with different and even contradicting interests.

He received donations from real-estate developers and kept close contact with powerful businessmen such as former mayor and billionaire Mike Bloomberg, billionaire banker Jamie Dimon, and even right-wing figures such as media mogul Rupert Murdoch. At a September business roundtable in Manhattan, Adams vowed to welcome big businesses back to the city, declaring they would play a key role in his plans for the city’s recovery.

At the same time, he secured labor union backing and branded himself as “the people’s candidate” and a blue-collar New Yorker with a strong connection to workers.

Ex-cop’s proposals for revamping Justice system

Like many other mayoral candidates in this year’s election, Adams pledged to address the problem of violent crime. He has repeatedly denounced the “defund the police” movement and rejected efforts focused on scaling back law enforcement’s power in favor of greater investments in mental health and other social services.

Adams even proposed a limited return of the highly-criticized stop-and-frisk program — a NYPD practice of temporarily detaining, questioning and occasionally searching civilians suspected of carrying weapons and other contraband on the street. Among his many proposals was the reintroduction of the city’s undercover police force — the unit disbanded in 2020 in the wake of several fatal shootings.

He has also promised to reform the police force by bringing more diversity to the department’s higher ranks.

On vaccines and homelessness

Adams is vaccinated and supports outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s vaccine mandate for all city workers. He also said he would keep the vaccine requirement for indoor dining and entertainment.

Homelessness is again surging in New York, reaching its highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s. According to a recentreport, on any given night an estimated 48,000 people experience homelessness in New York — 15,000 of them children. Adams has announced plans to turn underused hotels into single-room occupancy housing, where he says some 25,000 people could be permanently accommodated.