New York New York How’s Mayor Adams Doing? Don’t Ask, Many New Yorkers Say.

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How’s Mayor Adams Doing? Don’t

Ask, Many New Yorkers Say.
Halfway through his term, Mr. Adams is fighting to overcome low
poll numbers and questions about his management as he faces a
federal corruption investigation.

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Mayor Eric Adams faces the lowest approval rating since Quinnipiac University began polling the popularity of New York City mayors
in 1996. Dave Sanders for The New York Times

By Jeffery C. Mays and Emma G. Fitzsimmons

Dec. 29, 2023
Four days before Christmas, Mayor Eric Adams of New York
gathered his top aides on the stairs of City Hall’s rotunda for an
end-of-year message.
As his walk-in music blared from the speakers, Mr. Adams gave a
thumbs-up to his staff, positioning himself between two video
screens. One showed the year, 2023; the other displayed the
message, “Jobs Are Up. Crime Is Down.”
The news conference resembled a campaign event, full of applause
and cheerleader-like encouragement for the mayor at the halfway
mark of his first term. And by keeping a laserlike focus on
trumpeting two key statistical achievements, Mr. Adams seemed
intent on pushing a counternarrative to the growing perception
that he is not up to the job.
The mayor faces the lowest approval rating since Quinnipiac
University began polling the popularity of New York City mayors
in 1996. New Yorkers disapprove of almost every aspect of how Mr.
Adams is handling his job and don’t believe he is trustworthy, the
poll found.

He has made unpopular cuts to schools and libraries to close

looming budget gaps, and recently returned from a trip to
Washington with the news that the city should not expect help with
an influx of migrants. He was accused in a legal claim filed last Editors’ Picks
month of committing sexual assault in 1993, a charge he has
strongly denied. How Cancer Has
Influenced, but Not
Controlled, a
On top of it all, the home of the mayor’s chief fund-raiser was Musician’s Work
raided by the F.B.I and Mr. Adams’s phones and tablet were seized
.
Modern Swifties
as part of a federal investigation into his campaign’s fund-raising . Have Transcended
the Joke
And when he tries to give voice to his side of the story, his choice of
words often gets in the way. Mychal Threets
Wants Everyone to
Experience ‘Library
When asked recently to describe this past year in one word, the Joy’
mayor replied, “Uh, New York. This is a place where everyday you
wake up, you could experience everything from a plane crashing
into our Trade Center to a person who is celebrating a new
business that’s opened.”

Mayor Adams, center, at the Capitol in Washington in December. Al Drago for The New York Times

He offered another head-scratcher at the City Hall news

conference on jobs and crime, when he was asked what he would
say to New Yorkers angry about the painful budget cuts that he
had implemented.
“I wake up in the morning,” Mr. Adams said, “and sometimes I look
at myself, and I give myself the finger.”
Hours after he made those remarks, a video of his comments was
posted on social media by the Republican National Committee’s
rapid response account.
Some of the mayor’s policies have received broad praise: his plan
to put trash in large containers instead of in bags on the street and
to expand curbside composting; the city’s push to regain most of
the jobs lost during the pandemic ; efforts to stabilize public
housing, address climate change, expand youth programs and
boost the life sciences industry; and a proposal to build 100,000
homes .

But what they say are troubling trends: a rise in stop-

critics cite
policing ; a slow trickle of new affordable housing with
major projects many years from opening; a failure to create
enough preschool seats for children with disabilities; a delay in
providing basic benefits to the most vulnerable New Yorkers and a
pattern of stymying major bus and bike lane projects in response to
opposition from political allies.
“Beyond the issues that are weighing on New York City voters, it
appears there’s a lack of confidence in Mayor Adams,” said Mary
Snow, an assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll.

The Adams administration has blocked some bus and bike lane projects, including a busway on traffic-
Fordham Road in the Bronx. Thalia Juarez for The New York Times

Mr. Adams has even alienated key allies like Henry Garrido, the
leader of District Council 37, the city’s largest municipal employees’
union. The union is suing the Adams administration over the
budget cuts .

Mr. Garrido praised the mayor for settling 90 percent of

outstanding union contracts but said it’s been a “mixed bag”
because budget cuts are eliminating revenue-producing jobs such
as environmental inspectors and are hurting struggling New
Yorkers.
“Thirty thousand people waiting for food stamps is outrageous,”
Mr. Garrido said.
It is soon to gauge where the federal investigation into the
far too
mayor’s fund-raising will lead; Mr. Adams has not been accused of
any wrongdoing. But even if the mayor emerges unscathed, his bid
for a second term in 2025 may be undermined by pocketbook
issues, especially for middle- and working-class New Yorkers.
“His budget cuts will be just as politically harmful as any
investigation,” said Monica Klein, a strategist who often advises
progressive Democrats.
The United Federation of Teachers has filed suit against the Adams
administration to block education funding cuts. And parents in
particular have been upset about the painful budget cuts to
schools, prekindergarten and libraries. Robert Desir, a lawyer who
lives in Ditmas Park in Brooklyn, said that he is worried that his 2-
ear-old daughter won’t receive a free 3-K spot, which former
Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged would be universal by now. If his
family has to pay for preschool instead, they might consider
leaving the city.
“The city is becoming increasingly expensive, and it’s difficult for
people to thrive and plan for the future,” said Mr. Desir, who joined
a group called New Yorkers United for Child Care that is
circulating a petition to stop the cuts .

Mr. Adams has blamed the budget cuts on the cost of caring for
asylum seekers, saying that he, like many New Yorkers, is “angry”
that the federal government is not doing more.
At the same time, Mr. Adams’s cuts have come under increasing
scrutiny, with fiscal experts suggesting that his administration has
overstated the cost of the migrant crisis.

Mr. Adams has linked budget cuts to the cost of housing migrants. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

A report from the city comptroller Brad Lander, found that the ,

migrant crisis’s cost will be $465 million less than budgeted this
year and $1.61 billion less in fiscal year 2025. Mr. Lander urged
“stronger management” to address the city’s “fiscal challenges,”
such as real-time data to determine the cost of migrant spending
and whether the budget cuts are achieving the expected savings.
It isalso unclear whether Mr. Adams can take full credit for
improvements on jobs and crime. Overall crime is down slightly
compared with last year, according to Police Department statistics ,

but crime is also dropping nationally.

And while there was job growth in New York City, it has slowed this
year. The city still has not regained all the nearly 1 million jobs it
lost at the outset of the pandemic in 2020, according to the state
Labor Department. New York City is ending the year with an
official unemployment rate of 5.3 percent, slightly higher than a
year ago.
Bertha Lewis, a longtime organizer and president of the Black
Institute, said she was disappointed that she had not seen one “big
idea” from the mayor such as universal prekindergarten from Mr.
de Blasio. And she questioned his management skills.
“He has to get a hold of the management of the city,” said Ms.
Lewis. “You must manage how the machine is actually working.
That’s what being mayor is all about.”

Billde Blasio won plaudits for bringing universal prekindergarten to New York City, a signature
achievement of his tenure as mayor. Seth Wenig-Pool

As Mr. Adams’s standing has deteriorated, so has his relationship

with the City Council, which has already overridden a veto from the
mayor on housing vouchers and just passed bills banning solitary
confinement in the city’s jails and requiring reporting of police
stops despite the mayor’s objections.
The mayor’s office is making “harmful and hysterical budget cuts
that are intended to generate outrage,” said Lincoln Restler, a
councilman who is a leader of the Progressive Caucus and has
questioned Mr. Adams’s management for over a year.
“This not a mayor who had a lot of juice in the City Council last
is
year, and the combination of investigations, sagging poll numbers
and deeply harmful budget cuts are not strengthening his hand,”
Mr. Restler added.
The mayor has often criticized the news media for failing to focus
on the successes of his administration and for paying too much
attention to things flagged by the “sentence police,” even though he
insisted he speaks “the way New Yorkers talk.” He has also
suggested that he was being treated differently because of his race.
“Over the last month, there have been negative headlines about me
that are so sensational that they are hard to believe,” Mr. Adams
said on a call-in radio show on WBLS. “There’s a reason for that:
They are not based on facts, they’re based on rumor; and yes, on
many occasions, even lies.”

Mayor Adams announced a major housing program for New York in September, envisioning the creation of
100,000 new homes. Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

After a difficult Year 2, the mayor can turn things around by

focusing on the important steps his administration is taking on
rezonings and economic development, said Mitchell Moss, an
urban policy professor at New York University and an Adams ally.
Mr. Adams should quit picking fights with the media and President
Biden he said, and stop allowing his rhetoric to overshadow his
,

agenda.
“The mayor should be bringing good news to the attention of New
Yorkers,” he said, “not bad news.”
Patrick McGeehan and Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting.

Jeffery C. Mays is a reporter on the Metro desk who covers politics with a focus on New
York City Hall. A native of Brooklyn, he is a graduate of Columbia University. More about
Mays
Jeffery C.
Emma G. Fitzsimmons is the City Hall Bureau Chief for The Times, covering Mayor Eric
Adams and his administration.
More about Emma G. Fitzsimmons
A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 30, 2023 Section A Page 14 of the New
, , York edition with the
headline: How’s Mayor Adams Doing? Don’t Ask, Many New Yorkers Say. Order Reprints . | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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