Adams Exit Unlikely to Derail Mamdani, and CRE Is Making Its Peace With That

Eric Adams has dropped out of the race for New York mayor, having pursued re-election with none of an incumbent’s advantages, consolidating votes further toward the two front-runners.

Regardless of whether Adams’s exit subtracts votes from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, there remains little doubt that Assembly member Zohran Mamdani will sail to victory on Nov. 4, according to analysts and commercial real estate industry leaders.

In a Marist poll released in mid-September, Mamdani had a 21-point lead of 45 percent over Cuomo’s 24 percent of those polled. Adams trailed with 9 percent, behind even Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder, who polled at 17 percent.

Adams clearly found it too difficult to overcome the federal corruption charges he faced because, while the Trump administration’s Department of Justice cleared his name, others in his orbit implicated in the investigation continued to face the justice system.

In fact, Adams did not even kick off a re-election campaign until after the June Democratic primary in which Mamdani handily beat Cuomo, undercutting confidence in the former governor by his top supporters who wanted him to back out and give Adams a realistic chance to beat the democratic socialist.

But Adams’s withdrawal will have surprisingly little impact on Cuomo’s chances at this point, according to political consultant Jordan Barowitz.

“What’s shocking is how little impact it will have on the results,” Barowitz told Commercial Observer. “An incumbent mayor drops, and, because of the unique characteristics of this race, it barely moves the needle.”

Technically, Sliwa taking his leave from the mayor’s race would have greater impact, but, unlike Adams, the cat-loving vigilante seems to be beholden to no one — not even President Donald Trump, who had reportedly been in talks with Adams for a position in his administration in return for dropping out in order to help Cuomo’s chances.

“Curtis, up to this point, has been immune to pressure,” Barowitz said. “He is a unique character, and doesn’t really owe anything to anyone.”

Trump has said publicly that he doesn’t believe Sliwa and his many felines belong in Gracie Mansion, but Sliwa has been resistant to pleas to drop out.

GFP Real Estate Chairman Jeffrey Gural was one of Cuomo’s early boosters, having donated between himself and wife Paula Gural a total of $5,900 in March. That changed after the primary. Jeff Gural said that Cuomo should exit  because he would only lose again in November.

“I’m glad Eric did the right thing and dropped out,” Gural told CO on Monday. “He doesn’t want to be perceived as letting Mamdani win. … Personally, I thought he would do a good job, especially since the team he has in place now is first rate. But it was obvious he couldn’t win. I would expect that Trump will put a lot of pressure on Curtis Sliwa to drop out.”

But Gural, among other prominent business leaders in New York City, is ready to come to the table with Mamdani either way, because whether or not they want him as mayor, he has been treated as the presumptive winner.

“I share some of his views on affordability, [but] I know for a fact that socialism doesn’t work,” Gural continued. “I think my biggest concern is his age and experience. To be running the largest city in America at 33 with no experience could be daunting. Sure, other companies can always move, but real estate can’t.”

Politics aside, public safety will be the biggest benefit Mamdani will have the power to provide to commercial real estate if he wins, according to Gural.

“Obviously, if he wins, we have no choice but to give him our input,” Gural said. “We’re a major industry, and we’re really tied together. If he’s successful, it helps us. If he’s unsuccessful, it hurts us.”

Gural believes that one thing Mamdani could do to keep the city’s economy on an even keel would be to keep New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch as the head of municipal law enforcement.

A white paper from JLL also disputed the sense of doom felt across the realm of business interests from a potential Mamdani administration by illustrating “the actual scope of mayoral authority, historical market performance across different administrations, and the fundamental strengths that continue to position New York City as the nation’s leading real estate investment market.”

The paper essentially argued that Mamdani’s policy proposals such as commercial rent control, 200,000 permanently affordable, union-built homes over the next decade, and a stronger union presence on construction sites hinged in one form or another on federal, state or City Council approval.

In the wake of Adams’s exit from the race, some groups are doubling down on Mamdani thanks to Cuomo’s perceived mismanagement of agencies such as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and other hiccups during his time as governor.

Transit advocacy group Riders Alliance backed Mamdani for mayor in its first-ever political endorsement, stating that it would spend the next six weeks canvassing for the candidate who once promised to eliminate bus fares.

The question of whether that type of action would fall under the authority of the mayor to implement, with the city’s MTA buses answering to the governor, seems to be less important than having a bus-friendly mayor.

“The opportunity to have a mayor who has put bus riders at the very center of their governing agenda is incredibly exciting,” Riders Alliance Executive Director Betsy Plum said in a statement. “It offers us the greatest opportunity that we have had in more than a generation, perhaps ever, to deliver the bus agenda that New Yorkers deserve and to elect a ‘Rider-in-Chief.'”

Meanwhile, Make the Road Action, an advocacy group for affordable housing, among other issues, is reacting to Adams’s withdrawal by putting more oomph behind Mamdani. The group does not think Cuomo would be so different from the current mayor in terms of political affiliation and policies.

“Eric Adams has dropped out of the race, but the forces that he listens to are still represented,” Theo Oshiro, executive director of Make the Road Action, said in a statement. “Like Adams, Andrew Cuomo is willing to hand our city over to the Trump administration and his billionaire donors — and ignore the urgent need to address affordability. Cuomo’s campaign is the latest iteration of the same politics Adams ran on — pandering to the wants of real estate tycoons and billionaires while disregarding the needs of working-class New Yorkers. These are the same policies that have done nothing to abate the out-of-control housing and affordability crisis that New Yorkers are forced to bear.”

But give credit where credit is due. Adams leaves behind a mixed legacy, involving allegations of corruption as well as sweeping changes to the zoning map to facilitate the growth of affordable housing — from the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, to the Midtown South Mixed-Use Plan and the OneLIC rezoning.

The Adams administration also claims to have invested a total of $25.8 billion in affordable housing programs, including Monday’s announcement of an additional $1.5 billion going to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and $300 million to the New York City Housing Authority in the fiscal year 2026 budget.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.