How Eric Adams can ask NYC for a second chance and fend off Zohran Mamdani

After laying low during primary-campaign season, Mayor Eric Adams is once again the most important man in New York City.He may have also been the second-happiest person to see Tuesday’s shock primary-election results.Faced with the very real possibility of avowed socialist Zohran Mamdani taking the reins of the nation’s biggest city, Adams knows that a broad swath of voters will give him a second look — and maybe, after a bumpy term in office, a second chance.For all of Mamdani’s impressive success, he collected 432,305 of the primary’s first-rank choices (with 93% of the vote counted).But the city has 5.1 million registered voters — and 1.78 million of them couldn’t vote in Tuesday’s Democratic contest at all.Winning under 10% of the total electorate doesn’t necessarily translate to a ringing mandate, or a general-election landslide.In launching his re-election bid, Adams is making the case that he’s accomplished more than he’s gotten credit for in a distracted media environment.He has a point.Thanks to the vigilance and competence of his police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, the city’s murders are down about 27% so far in 2025.If the trend holds up, this year will break records for the fewest homicides in New York’s recorded history.

 Subway murders, too, have dropped to just one so far this year, with total major transit felonies down nearly 4% through May.Adams can also point to some bad hands he was dealt early on, situations that are now mostly gone.He took office amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and just a few months into his administration, busloads of migrants began arriving from the Southern border.New York City’s right-to-shelter law — grounded in a 44-year-old consent decree — meant Adams had to find beds for all of them, ultimately costing the city over $7 billion.He couldn’t just wave that law away.Modifying it would have required lengthy negotiations and court approval.Should he have done more to challenge the decre...