By: Jason L Riley - wsj.com - September 30, 2025

In announcing his exit from the race, Mr. Adams blamed negative media coverage and the decision by the city’s campaign finance board to deny him millions of dollars in matching funds. The bigger problem is that the mayor is deeply unpopular. His administration has seen multiple corruption probes. He’s on his second schools chancellor and fourth police commissioner. Mr. Adams was slow to realize that welcoming tens of thousands of illegal immigrants—as he did—to a city that already had a significant homeless population was pure lunacy.

Mr. Adams also failed to devise a campaign message that has resonated like Mr. Mamdani’s. The socialist state lawmaker, who leads the race by a wide margin, talks nonstop about affordability. He wants to make the city more livable for people with average incomes. It’s a noble goal, but Mr. Mamdani would pursue it with policies—free transportation, government-run grocery stores, minimum-wage increases, tax hikes—that have failed repeatedly whenever and wherever they’ve been tried.