N.Y.C. Mayoral Candidates Move to Capitalize on Adams’s Departure

One day after Mayor Eric Adams ended his re-election campaign, the three candidates running to replace him hit the campaign trail or worked the phones to solicit donations, seeking to capitalize on his exit.

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee and front-runner in the race for mayor, held a news conference to assail budget cuts that his chief rival, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, made to a rental assistance program. Mr. Mamdani also took a swipe at President Trump, who had warned on social media hours earlier that he would cut federal funding for New York City if Mr. Mamdani was elected.

Appearing at a news conference in Washington Heights with a woman who was hurt by Mr. Cuomo’s budget cuts, Mr. Mamdani said that he was heading toward victory, and Mr. Trump was having a hard time accepting it.

“I think that Donald Trump is going through the stages of grief,” Mr. Mamdani said.

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, insisted he would not leave the race during his own news conference, held outside a subway station on the Upper West Side. Mr. Sliwa, who is in third place in the polls, has faced calls to end his campaign so that voters who oppose Mr. Mamdani’s left-leaning positions could coalesce behind Mr. Cuomo, a third-party candidate who is polling in second place.

Mr. Sliwa attacked his two rivals as a “double-headed hydra” that would hurt the city and argued that Mr. Cuomo, a registered Democrat, could not connect with working-class Republican voters. They most likely harbor resentment toward the former governor for his positions on certain criminal justice issues and his actions at the beginning of the pandemic, he said.

“Let’s actually approach the voters, and let’s see if we can get Andrew Cuomo to actually go out into a crowd,” Mr. Sliwa said. “I don’t know if he’s allergic to people, but he seems to have a phobia. But let’s all get out into the streets, the subways, the buses, and let the people decide.”

Mr. Cuomo was largely holed up out of sight on Monday, dialing donors before an imminent fund-raising deadline for his campaign. Polls show he stands to benefit the most from the mayor’s departure — though not nearly enough for him to surpass Mr. Mamdani.

Many of the city’s wealthy donors who are wary of Mr. Mamdani had been sitting on the fence as long as Mr. Adams was in the race, privately saying they did not want to waste their money.

The question now is whether the kind of donors who can cut seven-figure checks to super PACs — like the financiers William Ackman and Daniel Loeb, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and others — will do so in an expensive long-shot attempt to change the terms of the contest, or prepare themselves for the prospect of a Mamdani victory and try to mend fences with him.

Donors who oppose Mr. Mamdani have been despondent for weeks, seeing their mission as relatively hopeless. Backers of the main super PAC that supported Mr. Cuomo and the effort to defeat Mr. Mamdani during the primary have privately said that they were largely resigned to the idea of his winning in November. Fund-raising for the group sagged.

The media mogul Barry Diller, who donated $250,000 in April to the Cuomo-allied super PAC, counted himself among the hopeless. But on Monday he said that his outlook had changed and that he planned to make an additional contribution to the group backing Mr. Cuomo, Fix the City.

“Now he has a chance,” Mr. Diller said. “Now he has to show enormous energy every which way, and now he has to show how differently he would manage New York City than Mamdani.”

Mr. Ackman thanked Mr. Adams on social media on Sunday “for stepping aside when the time was right” and called for Mr. Sliwa to follow suit. But he did not indicate one way or another whether he planned to spend more in the race.

Jeff Leb, the treasurer of New Yorkers for a Better Future Mayor 25, another super PAC, said he thought there would be renewed energy directed toward the contest.

“People are definitely interested again,” he said. His group recently spent $250,000 on digital ads attacking Mr. Mamdani’s policy proposals and notably featured stock photos in the place of photos of actual New Yorkers.

Mr. Leb said he had yet to receive any major new commitments but predicted, “There will be donors who have been sitting on the sidelines actually contributing now.”

Some representatives for major donors who are politically moderate said their clients did not believe investing in Mr. Cuomo to be wise unless Mr. Sliwa dropped out of the race as well.

“This is not just about who is on the ballot — it’s about what’s on the ballot,” Mr. Mamdani said. “What we see still on that ballot, showcased by Andrew Cuomo, is a record of broken promises and a record of disgrace.”

Mr. Cuomo’s campaign responded that he had made investments in supportive and affordable housing, and that the cuts to Advantage had been in response to a $10 billion state budget deficit. Mr. Cuomo attacked Mr. Mamdani in return for not following through on a promise to apologize to the Police Department for calling it a racist institution.

“Not only is he unqualified, he’s untrustworthy, changing the answers to his positions depending on the audience he’s in front of,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement.

Mr. Mamdani told reporters that he had been having private conversations with officers about his apology and would meet with police union leaders in the coming weeks.

“I’m looking to lead the city with those officers and continue to build those relationships,” he said.

Theodore Schleifer and Nicholas Fandos contributed reporting.

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