Eric Adams’ mayoralty is dropping like a rock down a well, and it’s all his fault.
Quinnipiac University pollsters Wednesday detailed the mayor’s astoundingly dramatic fall – a decline with ominous implications as New York enters a new budgeting cycle, never mind all its other problems.
The new poll shows Adams with 28% registered voter approval – and a whopping 58% turning thumbs down. It’s the worst mayoral showing since Quinnipiac began keeping tabs in 1996!
Thus Adams, it seems, is that rare bird who can’t fool any of the people, any of the time.
But this should surprise no one.
The fellow wanders from crisis to crisis, deploying rhetoric rather than solutions and rarely following up – then flipping an occasional a race card when it suits his purposes.
Nothing seems to be getting done; dark fiscal clouds are building – indeed, the city could be on a rocket ride back to 1977 – while crime and civic disorder fester. And the schools sure aren’t getting better.
It all adds up.
And it is, for sure, confusing.
So focus on this:
Adams, a former cop, made much of violent crime during the 2021 election. The rhetoric was unfocused – but he was elected as the closest thing to a law-and-order candidate as contemporary Gotham is likely to produce.
But because he is a reed in the wind, when ideology came calling he bent.
Sanctuary city in the face of a federal border breakdown? Sure, why not – and so he flopped down a welcome mat for the world.
And he did this without a meaningful caution to Washington or Albany about the costs.
Now the bills have come due – financing 150,000 border hoppers ain’t cheap – and among Adams’ recent budget-cutting casualties are the next five scheduled NYPD rookie classes.
Flippity-flop – the law-and-order mayor turns out to be a de façto defund-the-police guy.
It’s not just the cops, of course, and folks notice these things – the foolish policy choices, and also the incoherence.
Especially the incoherence. It makes people nervous – and it makes mayors vulnerable.
And Eric Adams is nothing if not vulnerable right now. He says he is coping with a $12 billion migrant-drive budget shortfall – whatever it may turn out to be, color it huge – and he is without reliable allies anywhere.
The City Council is a hard-left termite mound dedicated to expanding spending at the expense of the municipal tax base.
The Legislature, now veto-proof, has similar sensibilities – and, anyway, Adams has done nothing to court its leadership.
Gov. Hochul is a non-entity.
The top Democrats in Congress – Brooklyn’s own Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries – have made it clear that Gotham is on its own.
Add all that up and consider this: Why should any of those folks help Adams when Adams can’t help himself. Or won’t.
The man is at 28% in the Q-poll – that’s not just below sea level, it’s a the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
Maybe he survives – Abe Beame and David Dinkins, equally hapless in analogous circumstances, didn’t – but if it’s going to happen, he needs to start now.
Focus, Mr. Mayor.
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