A Democratic mainstay is set to run against Eric Adams

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Eric Adams has his first viable reelection challenger — and he’ll face a familiar foe.

Former City Comptroller Scott Stringer is registering a campaign committee on Thursday and will begin raising funds as he explores a run for mayor, he confirmed to POLITICO.

Stringer had been a frontrunner in the 2021 race until his campaign was derailed by a sexual misconduct allegation.

And as he did then, Stringer will be challenging Adams from the political left.

The Manhattan Democrat charges that the mayor has fumbled city budget negotiations as well as the migrant crisis — aligning himself with concerns cited by voters in a December poll that showed Adams with a record-low approval rating.

“You can’t love migrants on Monday, blame them for the ills of the city on Wednesday and fail to build relationships at the highest levels of government and think it’s going to be OK,” Stringer said in an interview.

He also took a broadside at Adams’ overall record.

“Crime’s up, housing’s down, education’s flat,” he said. “For the last two years, this administration has been steering the ship straight into an iceberg, and we need a new captain to get around these multiple crises.”

The mayor's campaign declined to comment.

Criticisms of Adams — a retired police captain who won in 2021 as a law-and-order candidate — vary from his attention to affordability, to his management style, to his active nightlife.

Stringer is zeroing in on two issues of serious concern to voters: Of those polled by Quinnipiac in December, 66 percent disapproved of Adams’ handling of the migrant surge and 83 percent expressed worries about his budget cuts.

The mayor and his team have previously responded by noting that major crime, including murder and shooting rates, is down and more jobs are being created under his watch. He regularly says he is steering New York City through an unprecedented crisis with 170,000 migrants arriving since spring of 2022.

Stringer was well positioned in the crowded 2021 Democratic primary for mayor until the sexual misconduct allegation was made about an interaction 20 years ago. He finished in a distant fifth place.

He sued his accuser for defamation, producing sworn statements from allies disputing her account. His suit was tossed because he filed it too late, and he is appealing.

The formalizing of his interest in the race comes when Adams is at his weakest politically, hamstrung by a federal investigation into whether his 2021 campaign colluded with a foreign government and saddled with a 28 percent job approval rating.

Nevertheless, Adams has a massive fundraising advantage. The mayor has more than $2.2 million in his 2025 campaign war chest.

Stringer’s name was among the contenders in a hypothetical special election in a Slingshot Strategies poll released in December. The survey found he had a 30-18 favorability rating, with 26 percent not knowing him and another 26 percent being undecided.

Other names floated as potential 2025 challengers have included state Sens. Jessica Ramos and Zellnor Myrie; Kathryn Garcia, a top aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul, who came close to beating Adams in 2021; City Council Member Justin Brannan; and former state Assemblymember Michael Blake.

Stringer, who is 63 and white, was initially boosted in 2021 by a coalition that looked nothing like him: younger people, Black, Latino and Asian New Yorkers, all who shared his progressive platform. But backers peeled off when he was accused of unwanted sexual advances.

Stringer will have to rebuild that support to go up against a mayor who remains popular with Black, middle-class and politically moderate New Yorkers.