Mayor Eric Adams’s mishandling of the New York City budget and the avalanche of scandal and impropriety has torpedoed his polling numbers. Quinnipiac’s December 5 poll showed Adams enjoying a mere 28 percent approval rating, the lowest for any New York City mayor since the agency began asking the question in 1996. Fifty-eight percent of New Yorkers surveyed disapproved of Adams’s performance, with only 22 percent surveyed expressing support for his handling of homelessness and the budget.

Despite all his swagger and claims to a divine appointment to mayorship, Adams is a historically weak mayor and on track to serve only one term. Other Democratic politicians are already circling above. The potential list of primary challengers includes progressive younger state senators (who challenged the Republican-aligned Independent Democratic Conference senators in 2018), city councilmembers and borough presidents, and, most notoriously, New York’s former disgraced governor, Andrew Cuomo.