Who Could A Moderate Democrat See In City Hall If Eric Adams Has To Go?

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has somehow managed to hang on to his power at City Hall in the wake of federal bribery charges, even as more of his aides and staffers have resigned or been forced to leave their posts. The mayor is looking for a new police commissioner, schools chancellor, deputy mayor for public safety and senior advisor, as well as people to fill several other high-profile jobs. If Adams himself resigns or is forced out, who could New Yorkers look to to replace him? Former Nassau County Executive Laura Curran appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program and floated two of the leading names she thinks could take over if Adams is pushed out.

“I’m hearing an appetite for [Andrew Cuomo], for someone who can actually get things done and build things,” Curran told Berman and Riedel, “and maybe, someone who is very forceful in personality to make sure that problems are solved, which sometimes you need, especially with the problems of New York City. You have to be willing to make some people unhappy sometimes, and I think that’s something that Andrew Cuomo can do. But I haven’t seen any polling; I don’t know how the electorate feels about it. There’s obviously a lot of people who are interested. Is Tish James going to get into it? I don’t know this from her, but I know from other people that this is something that she’s always wanted, so let’s see."

Curran rationalized that voters would forgive Cuomo for his leadership during the Covid crisis and his own resignation over sexual abuse claims. “I will say, having served during a similar time, you do the best you can with the information that you have. Is it always going to be perfect? No, but I think with the woman stuff, all of those cases have been disintegrated in court. They just didn’t go anywhere; there wasn’t much there at all, it turned out. The thing is though, who Andrew Cuomo has always had on his side is black leadership in the city, but now you’ve got [NAACP Board of Directors member] Hazel Dukes, who is a big fan of Cuomo, but now she’s standing with Eric Adams.”

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