Mayor Eric Adams leaves door open to GOP switch, sparking criticism from Democratic rivals

Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who once was a registered Republican, did not rule out Friday rejoining the GOP.

Hizzoner, during a Dec. 6 NY1 interview, was asked point blank if he would consider switching parties in light of his increasingly positive tone toward President-Elect Donald Trump. In response, the mayor did not say “yes,” but he also notably did not say “no” either.

“The Party that’s most important to me is the American Party,” the mayor told NY1 anchor Jamie Stelter.

Although he has only held elected office as a Democrat, Adams was a registered Republican for seven years — between 1995 and 2002 — when he was still in the NYPD.

The exchange comes on the heels of Adams spending much of his weekly news conference on Tuesday speaking positively about Trump’s incoming administration. During the briefing he praised tech billionaire Elon Musk — whom Trump has appointed to oversee government efficiency—and said he would meet with the incoming president’s border czar Tom Homan. Adams also railed against undocumented migrants accused of committing crimes.

The mayor’s apparent rightward shift seemed to begin after he was federally charged by the Manhattan US Attorney’s office in September and has accelerated since Trump won reelection. While Adams maintains that he is espousing positions he has long held, his friendly stance toward the incoming Republican president has fueled widespread speculation that he is hoping Trump will make his legal problems go away — either by dismissing the charges or pardoning him.

“My tone has not changed. I’ve said the same things for really the last 35 years,” Adams said on NY1. “So, it wasn’t about the election of the incoming president, who I refuse to be warring with.”

Trump has been publicly sympathetic to Adams, repeating without evidence that the mayor is the target of a politically motivated prosecution over his outspokenness about the migrant crisis and its impact on the Big Apple. Adams himself has made that same claim as recently as Friday.

But the mayor is presumably still running in next year’s Democratic primary against several candidates to his left. A couple of his challengers wasted no time on Friday in taking him to task for not ruling out rejoining the GOP.

State Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn), in a statement, said the Republican Party under Trump has “never been more out of line” with New York’s values and that the city needs a mayor who “isn’t scared to call himself a Democrat.”

“Donald Trump is determined to roll back climate protections, voting rights, Social Security, reproductive freedoms, and critical measures to curb gun violence — rights that New York fought tirelessly to win,” Myrie said. “Instead of playing footsie with the next president, we need a mayor with the courage to stand up for our city.”

Another mayoral contender, Democratic Socialist Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens), said that Adams sounds more like he is “auditioning for a job in right-wing media” than running for reelection as a Democrat.

“Eric Adams is in City Hall because Democratic voters sent him there,” Mamdani said. “To serve his own narrow self-interests, he is clearly prepared to betray them.”