Eric Adams Will Become NYC's Next Mayor
"I am you," Eric Adams told New Yorkers in his victory speech. He handily beat Republican Curtis Sliwa.
Matt Troutman,Patch Staff
NYC PATCH
NYC PATCH
This story will be updated as preliminary results stream in.
NEW YORK CITY — Eric Adams will overwhelmingly defeat Republican Curtis Sliwa to become New York City's next mayor, according to an Associated Press projection.
Adams, a Democrat, will become the city's second Black mayor and replace Bill de Blasio, who held the office for eight tumultuous years of progressive triumphs and disappointments.
With half the city's precincts counted by 10:30 p.m., Adams had 67 percent of votes to Sliwa's 29 percent.
He took the stage Tuesday night to bask in his victory, quote Drake and send a message of unity.
I'm the mayor," he told a cheering crowd.
"Today, we take off the intramural jersey and we put on one jersey: Team New York," he said.
The race between Adams and Sliwa was lopsided from the beginning— Adams carried an inherent advantage as a Democrat even as Sliwa consistently argued his appeal goes beyond party lines.
Still, early results were so strongly in Adams' favor that the Associated Press called the race about 20 minutes after polls closed Tuesday.
Sliwa conceded the race shortly before 10 p.m. — not even an hour after polls closed.
He pledged his support to Adams and, invoking former President Richard Nixon, promised that New Yorkers haven't seen the last of him.
"You will have Curtis Sliwa to kick around," he said.
But if the race between Adams and Sliwa seemed a foregone conclusion, Adams' path to become the Democratic nominee was considerably more rocky — and could presage fights with his own party going forward.
The crowded Democratic primary field had candidates such as Maya Wiley and Scott Stringer advance strongly progressive platforms, while Kathryn Garcia grew support by stressing her technocratic competence.
Adams jockeyed for the top spot with Andrew Yang, who advanced a similar broadly appealing moderate agenda, but eventually pulled far ahead by the primary.
In the end, Adams eked out a narrow victory over Garcia after successive rounds of ranked-choice voting — and one major error by the city's Board of Elections.
But once Adams clinched the nomination he garnered support from a wide swath of New Yorkers, from community advocates to prominent billionaires.
He also had the wholehearted support of de Blasio.
After the primary, de Blasio noted a similar coalition of working-class voters to those who thrust him into office clinched Adams' victory.
The support wasn't always reciprocated — Adams tried to distance himself from de Blasio at several points during the campaign.
But when pressed at a debate, Adams gave de Blasio a "B+" grade for his time in office.
De Blasio quickly took to Twitter to congratulate Adams.
"@EricAdamsForNYC embodies the greatness of our city," de Blasio tweeted. "He will be an outstanding mayor. Congratulations, my friend!"
Adams, during his victory speech, cast himself as a mayor who can speak for all New Yorkers.
"I am you," he said.