Eric Adams, once hailed by observers and himself as the future of the Democratic Party, now faces multiple federal indictments as the result of a ten-month-long corruption investigation. Adams also now faces snowballing calls for his resignation, a move that started with New York City Democratic Socialist of America (NYC-DSA) elected officials, first state assembly member Emily Gallagher and then city council member Tiffany Cabán. The allegations state that Adams knowingly broke fundraising rules leading up to his narrow primary election victory in June 2021.

We can see now that the victory of the proudly centrist, law-and-order, pro-business candidate to run the United States’ largest city wasn’t a reflection of a popular consensus but an extremely close election, funded and made possible by alleged straw donor fraud that gave him a huge money advantage in a tight primary election.

New York City’s public financing matching program is intended to incentivize candidates to draw on a wide network of smaller donors rather than large corporate donors. Candidates who accept public matching funds can receive donations from New York City residents up to $2,000, and the first $250 from an individual will be matched eight-to-one with public funds (up to $2,000 in public matching funds per donor). Taking public matching funds is a commitment not to take money from special interests and to gain a wider base of support among average New Yorkers. The candidate who raises the most money with matching funds also demonstrates the widest base of support.

In a crowded Democratic mayoral primary in June 2021, the first mayoral election with ranked-choice voting in NYC history, Adams won but with a very narrow margin. After eight rounds of counting ranked-choice ballots, Adams defeated Kathryn Garcia (when all other candidates were eliminated) by less than 1 percent of the final tally, about 7,000 votes out of about 930,000 in the Democratic primary. Notably, 139,000 votes were exhausted by the eighth round of voting, meaning that they did not rank Adams or Garcia at all. This means that over 10 percent of voters did not have a say in the final “round” of votes, which could have changed the final outcome had these 139,000 voters ranked all of the candidates.

While this moment is satisfying for his political opponents, we should remember that at the foundation of these allegations is Adams’s defrauding the public of funds. Despite his blessing by the business community and its giant spigot of cash, this fraud was necessary to create the fundraising advantage that narrowly produced his victory in the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary.

The indictment includes the figure of $10 million in matching funds that Adams gained through the use of illegal “straw donors.” To win the 2021 primary election, Adams spent $10.2 million, according to campaign finance reporting — more than any other citywide candidate that year. As stated on page twenty-seven of the indictment, “the 2021 Campaign reaped over $10 million in Matching Funds based on the false certifications that the campaign complied with the law when in fact ERIC ADAMS, the defendant, knowingly and repeatedly relied on illegal contributions.”

Illegal straw donor bundling involves large contributions being illegally funneled through numerous New York City residents who donated to Adams under their names. Such illicit donations were then matched with public funds — a scheme that runs completely counter to the spirit behind matching funds, which is about counteracting the corrosive effects of precisely such large donors.

Mayor Adams came to power by leaning on his working-class bona fides, decades of experiences as a public servant working the police force and holding various elected positions including Brooklyn borough president, while expressing pride in his modest personal background and strong connection to politically moderate working-class voters in New York City. Yet while candidate Adams espoused certain populist policies, Adams also openly disdained “fancy candidates” (a dig at his progressive opponent, elite-educated Maya Wiley) and repeatedly placed himself in direct opposition to the growing socialist movement in New York City.

As he began to govern, it became clear that Eric Adams was not the “idiosyncratic” quirky modern Democrat that defied clear categorization; instead, he was simply pro-business, austerity-oriented, punitive, and police-obsessed in his governing, with combative stances toward his progressive and diverse city council. Adams also revealed his ego, claiming to be divinely called to serve as the city’s mayor. He quickly alienated former allies in dealing with issues like the migrant crisis; angering a diverse, cross-class constituency by playing chicken with the city’s beloved library budgets; choosing austerity in abandoning his universal early childhood education commitments; mismanagement of the humanitarian crisis at the city’s jail Rikers Island; and blocking the city council’s ban on solitary confinement in city jails.

His combative style of governing led to some of the lowest approval ratings of a NYC mayor since such data has been recorded. An April 2024 poll showed that only 16 percent of likely voters would vote for Adams.

The forty-seven-page full text of the mayor’s indictment shows the extent of Adams’s alleged corruption and illegal activities. But perhaps most striking is that the direct personal benefits to Adams resulting from the alleged behavior are rather modest. The total estimated value of the illicit benefits was $123,000 in airline tickets, luxury flight upgrades, free hotel stays, meals, and other recreational holiday activities such as boat rides. There was a general understanding that these alleged travel-related perks would translate into favors to benefit Adams’s Turkish connections, a clear quid pro quo.

These benefits included Adams’s demands that the Fire Department of New York approve the newly built Turkish Consular Building by the United Nations, which Turkish officials wanted opened in time for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to New York City. Adams, not yet mayor, pressured Fire Department officials to fast track a temporary certificate of occupation for the thirty-five-story building’s approval (ahead of other buildings, which faced delays because of COVID) in September 2021, despite the FDNY’s Fire Prevention Chief’s concerns about fire safety defects in the building (which included problems with fans, smoke detectors, and elevators). Both the FDNY Chief of Department and Fire Prevent Chief were threatened with termination if they did not comply. In addition to the building safety scandal, Adams also agreed, via a staffer, to not make a statement about the Armenian genocide on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

Adams’s scandals, indictment, and likely criminal trial are a stark reminder that his much-touted political mandate appears fabricated — the result of public fraud. The current federal allegations are also likely just the tip of the iceberg of Adams’s campaign financing fraud in exchange for business influence.

Adams’s victory was hailed at the time as a defeat of the socialist and progressive left. But now, New Yorkers wading through the details of the allegations of wire fraud, bribery, and criminal conspiracy can see how their tax dollars were used to artificially prop up the candidacy of an elected official who has failed on almost every conceivable metric to meet the needs of New York City residents. Whether Adams is removed from office, resigns, or faces electoral defeat, the Left in New York must seize this moment reassert the popularity of our policies and our base of support, and challenge the false capitalist narrative that a rule-breaking, fraudulent, austerity-obsessed mayor like Eric Adams represents the will of the people.