NYC incumbent Mayor Eric Adams launches re-election bid
1 of 9 | New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks at his re-election campaign launch event on the steps of City Hall in New York City on Thursday. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
June 26 (UPI) -- New York City Mayor Eric Adams kick-started his re-election bid as an independent candidate on Thursday.
Adams was joined by about 100 supporters on the steps of the New York City Hall as he announced his candidacy and laid out a case for another four years as the city's mayor.
"It's a choice between a candidate with a blue collar and one with a silver spoon," Adams said of his background versus that of Democratic Party candidate and self-avowed socialist Zohran Mamdani.
Mamdani, 33, surprised many in the political establishment by winning Tuesday's Democratic Party primary over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who conceded the loss and announced he would continue running as an independent.
Adams, likewise, was elected to the mayoral office as a Democrat in 2021 but since has left the party to become an independent.
"This is a city not of socialism," Adams told supporters on Thursday.
"There's no dignity in someone giving you everything for free," he said. "There's dignity in giving you a job, so you can provide for your family and the opportunities that you deserve."
Adams said New York is "not a city of handouts" but instead helps people improve themselves and their lives.
Adams has challenged the prior Biden administration's immigration policies and supports the Trump administration's efforts to oppose illegal immigration.
The Biden administration filed federal charges accusing Adams of bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy, which the Trump administration dropped earlier this year.
Adams said the charges against him were politically motivated due to his opposition to the Biden administration's immigration and border policies.
"Despite our pleas, when the federal government did nothing as its broken immigration policies overloaded our shelter system with no relief, I put the people of New York before party and politics," Adams told media after he was indicted on Sept. 27.
"I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target," he said. "And a target I became."
Mamdani has proposed government control of grocery stores, free public transportation, free childcare, freezing rents and eliminating tuition at city universities, among other proposals.
Mamdani is a New York state representative who was born and raised in Uganda in 1991 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018.
He has a bachelor's in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College and, if elected, said he would use his power as mayor to "reject Donald Trump's fascism, to stop [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents from deporting our neighbors and to govern our city as a model for the Democratic Party."
His mother, Mira Nair, is an Indian-American filmmaker who is known best for "Mississippi Masala."
Mamdani's father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a Ugandan and former professor of colonialism in India, African history and political violence at Columbia University and other institutions.
He is the director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research in Uganda.
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