NYC Comptroller Brad Lander announces run against incumbent Eric Adams for mayor
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- New York City Comptroller Brad Lander announced he is running for mayor against Eric Adams, the latest Democrat to challenge the incumbent in a 2025 primary.
The 55-year-old Lander, a frequent critic of the mayor, posted a video Tuesday morning questioning "leadership that delivers so little for so few."
"We can replace a leader when they fail the basic tests of the job," Lander said, calling for better transportation, more housing, fair wages, the high costs of child care, and budget cuts to libraries.
"Just a couple days ago I was at the dentist and the dental hygienist has a 3-year-old and she has to come to work every day and she had heard the city was promising childcare for every 3-year-old but she's 140th on the waitlist. The management of our 3K and pre-K has been botched by this city hall," Lander said. "The city is not failing its leadership is failing," Lander told Eyewitness News Reporter Anthony Carlo on Mornings @ 10.
Lander has, in the past, also zeroed in on Adams' handling of the migrant crisis, which prompted the mayor to mock him last year.
"Face it, think about that for a moment, the loudest I think Eric should, the loudest person in the city has yet to go to Washington, DC," Adams had said.
Members of the same party who are adversarial to say the least.
Adams is a moderate Democrat, while Lander is a progressive who, during his time in the city council, focused largely on police reform.
"Look, quality of life and public safety are progressive values they are what people want from their government, one of the big issues right now is the mental health crisis, the rise in street homeless from mentally ill people. What Mayor Adams has done is have an uncoordinated system that kind of sweeps people from place to place, from hospital to jail to street corner to other street corner," Lander said.
He shared his plan to decrease street homelessness.
"So, we've done several audits that look at the money we're already spending. There's a program called The Intensive Mobile Treatment Unit that we're spending tens of millions of dollars to focus on this set of folks on, but we've found the program totally uncoordinated. Department of Corrections doesn't tell case workers when people are coming out of detention. Or, the hospitals don't tell people either, so if we do a better job of coordinating that system to have a real continuum of care which includes the housing vouchers we're already spending money on, we can genuinely help people into stable housing, where their mental health conditions can be managed more effectively and keep them out of the subways and off the streets and keep our neighborhood safer at the same time," Lander said.
Lander joins an increasing field of challengers for next June's primary, which includes former city comptroller Scott Stringer, who held that job before Lander, and State Senator Zellnor Myrie from Brooklyn. All three are left-leaning, taking the progressive lane in a primary against a more moderate incumbent.
The announcement also kicks off a competition for Lander's now-open comptroller seat. State Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar of Queens, a close mayoral ally, is already exploring running for the office.
Adams is running on a message that he has brought down crime and helped the city recover jobs lost during the pandemic.
The mayor says Lander should focus his attention on the national race at hand, not one that isn't until next year.
"I thought his announcement was to go assist the first Black woman of color to be the president of the United States, not take the second man of color from being the mayor of the City of New York," Adams said. "That's what I'm focused on."
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