Democrat Eric Adams wins New York City mayor’s race

The former Brooklyn president and NYPD captain has been elected the city’s second-ever Black mayor as he prepares to inherit a city in recovery

Democratic candidate Eric Adams – a former police captain and Brooklyn borough president – has defeated long-shot Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in the race for New York City’s next mayor, who will face a major test in leading the city from a defining public health emergency that has magnified crises facing the nation’s largest city.

Mr Adams – a former New York City Police Department captain, state legislator and Brooklyn borough president – has been elected the city’s second-ever Black mayor.

The 110th mayor of New York inherits city leadership in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic that has upended life for millions of residents – including the city’s schools and its thousands of students – and he will steward the nation’s most expensive police force amid international demands for reform when he enters office on 1 January.

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Adams entered a voting booth in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood of Brooklyn with a framed photograph of his mother cradled under his arm. Outside, he traced his ascendance to office from his working-class upbringing as a child with dyslexia to his emergence as the heavily favoured candidate to win election.

“I’m not supposed to be standing here,” he told reporters. “But because I’m standing here, everyday New Yorkers are going to realize they deserve the right to stand in this city also.”

Mr Adams was among six children raised by a single mother in South Jamaica, a neighbourhood in the borough of Queens.

He often charts his political origin story with his arrest at age 15, and the police assault he endured while in custody.

Later, as an officer himself, he protested against police violence and promoted “culture” reform from within the ranks. He formed 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care to stop racial profiling, and his mayoral campaign has capitalised on his experience on the force and as a Black man who has seen police violence up close – straddling a “tough on crime” approach that historically has undermined progress towards racial and economic justice that he also recognises as immediate priorities for his agenda.

In an election night speech celebrating his victory, Mr Adams called for unity among New Yorkers.

“We are so divided right now,” he said. “And we’re missing the beauty of our diversity. We have to end all this division ... Today, we take off the intramural jersey and we put on one jersey: Team New York.”

Covid-19 has magnified long-standing disparities in housing, education and economic security across New York, while issues of police reform and public safety dominated debate in the middle of a pandemic that has devastated its neighbourhoods.

A victory for Mr Adams, who retired as a captain with the NYPD after 20 years on the force, follows months of calls to “defund the police” and demands in the streets and at the steps of police precincts and City Hall to prioritise funding for critical social services, as near-daily protests against police violence heightened scrutiny of the department’s own history of violence and pugnacious leadership.

He has proposed a limited return of much-maligned stop-and-frisk efforts and reinstating a plainclothes undercover police unit – which was dissolved in 2020 following a number of fatal shootings and civilian complaints – to target “gangs and guns.”

Mr Adams supports the current city plan to close the Rikers Island complex by 2026 and replace it with a network of borough-based jails following a growing humanitarian crisis at the jail.

Mr Adams – who is vaccinated against Covid-19 – intends to maintain recent vaccine requirements for city workers and law enforcement, saying during a recent debate that “we can never go back to what we were when Covid hit the city”.

With roughly 48,000 people experiencing homelessness on a given night in New York, including nearly 15,000 children, Mr Adams proposes turning underused hotels in outer boroughs into permanent single-room occupancy housing, bringing roughly 25,000 rooms online.

But throughout the race, Mr Adams and his well-financed campaign faced scrutiny over his ties to prominent lobbyists and developers, questions over his actual residency – prompting reporters to camp outside his home to determine whether he actually lives there – and how his business-minded campaign intends to bolster the city’s working-class.

GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa – a controversial talk-radio fixture – launched a relentless campaign relying on his knack for attention-getting stunts and decades of experience as a New York institution as the red-beret-wearing founder of the volunteer-patrol group the Guardian Angels.

He framed a campaign around eliminating crime and bolstering the city’s police department, combatting homelessness, property tax reform, expanding animal welfare programmes, and floating a universal basic income initiative.

Mr Sliwa – who conceded to Mr Adams during an election night speech – faced difficult odds of winning in a city where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly eight to one.

“You knew I was an unorthodox candidate,” he told supporters at an election night party. “The deck was stacked against me.”

He said he pledged his support for Mr Adams “because we’re all going to have to coalesce together in harmony and solidarity if we’re going to save this city that we love.”