This past Sunday, Mayor Eric Adams descended the stairs at Gracie Mansion in a video announcing the suspension of his re-election bid as polls showed him in fourth place.

Adams could not raise enough money to compete against Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, who leads in polling and fundraising. “Despite all that we have achieved, I cannot continue my re-election campaign,” he said in a video message. “The constant media speculation and the Campaign Finance Board’s decision to withhold millions of dollars have undermined my ability to raise the funds needed for a serious campaign.”

Last week, Adams wore the joma given to him by Bukharian activists at a Lebanese shul in Brooklyn and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following his speech at the U.N. General Assembly. His effort to maintain Jewish support stood in contrast to Mamdani, who vows to arrest Netanyahu and sponsored bills in the State Assembly to rescind tax-exempt status from pro-Israel nonprofits. Adams also sought to run on a ballot line titled EndAntisemitism, which the Board of Elections refused to allow, as he could only run on one third-party line.

Having won his election on the strength of the Orthodox Jewish vote, Adams made Orthodox advisers highly visible in his circle. In 2022, a group of liberal rabbis reminded him that not every rabbi is “a man with a beard.” His cabinet hires included spokesman Fabien Levy, a son of Iranian Jews; Deputy Chief of Staff Menashe Shapiro, a native of Queens; and Jessica Tisch, daughter of a prominent philanthropic family and the first Jewish woman to lead the country’s largest police force.

Adams maintained New York’s historic “sister city” relationship with Yerushalayim, visiting his Israeli counterpart Moshe Lion in the summer of 2023, on a trip where he also met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, other government officials, and business leaders. In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, Adams attended a rally for the hostages three days later, declaring, “I’m your brother. Your fight is my fight.”

Adams’ advocacy for Israel continues an unbroken mayoral tradition as old as the Jewish state, in which every mayor has either visited Israel, marched in the Celebrate Israel Parade, or hosted Israeli leaders at City Hall and Gracie Mansion. Mamdani seeks to reverse this practice, disparaging Israel as an “apartheid” state engaging in “genocide.”

Having failed to defeat Mamdani in the June Democratic primary, the city’s Jewish vote must coalesce around the most viable candidate who can beat him. In his video, Adams did not offer support to former Governor Andrew Cuomo nor Republican Curtis Sliwa, and his name remains on the November ballot. A Quinnipiac poll released earlier this month showed that, of the 12 percent of voters who favored Adams, 42 percent described themselves as Jewish.

Sliwa visited the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills last month for a 9/11 memorial event, and Cuomo visited the Bukharian Jewish community in Fresh Meadows last Sunday. Between these appearances, Jewish activists have been registering new voters, hoping that the community will exceed turnout expectations for a non-presidential election.

In the event that an Orthodox surge does not swing the November election, it is important to show that Brad Lander and Jerry Nadler are not representative of mainstream Jewish opinion on Mamdani.

While Cuomo appears ahead of Sliwa in polling and fundraising, the radio show host continues to advertise in Jewish newspapers, campaigning with Dov Hikind, a former Democratic assemblyman who became a Republican after retiring from public office. He also has the endorsement of Larry Gordon, publisher of the Five Towns Jewish Times, which is widely distributed across Queens. None of the city’s Republican lawmakers are crossing the party line to endorse Cuomo, and while Trump called for Sliwa to drop out and threatens to withhold funding to the city if Mamdani wins, he has not endorsed Cuomo.

Sliwa’s Jewish endorsements are grassroots in contrast to Cuomo’s institutional supporters, such as the Crown Heights United PAC and Sephardic Community Federation.

To win, Cuomo needs to peel away Republican voters from Sliwa, remind Black voters that the DSA was uncommitted when Kamala Harris was the Democratic presidential nominee last year, and appeal to immigrant voters that their dreams of prosperity and public safety are threatened by Mamdani. On a recent visit to a mosque in the Bronx, Cuomo withstood hecklers to point out issues, rather than identity, as reasons to vote for him.

“My opponent’s direction is the exact opposite — a socialist philosophy that is anti-business, more anti-police, and would reduce the number of officers. It would legalize prostitution and the drug trade,” he said.

When one congregant expressed doubt that a Muslim candidate would decriminalize this practice, Cuomo told him to read Mamdani’s own words. With a month remaining before Election Day and early ballots mailed out, Cuomo’s strength is not his lengthy résumé in contrast to Mamdani’s youth and inexperience, as many voters are seeking a fresh face in City Hall.

Rather, he should focus on the Astoria assemblyman’s proposed policies — demonstrating how government-run groceries and free transit have failed in other cities — his thin legislative record, which is more about performative bills such as “Not On Our Dime” than those that can clear committee and become law, and appealing to voters who immigrated to this country precisely because socialism failed wherever it was put into practice.

By Sergey Kadinsky