Adams Eclipses Mamdani in Recent Fund-Raising, as Cuomo Lags Behind

When Eric Adams appeared at a campaign fund-raiser in Florida earlier this month with people who are aligned with a Young Republicans group and President Trump, the event seemed incongruous for a sitting Democratic mayor of New York City.

But this is no ordinary mayor’s race.

As Mr. Adams makes a long-shot re-election bid as an independent candidate in November, he has begun to expand his fund-raising network to try to compete with the Democratic nominee, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.

The latest fund-raising period in the race suggests that the mayor still holds sway with some donors — even if they are outside the typical New York donor world.

Of the $1.5 million that Mr. Adams raised during the most recent filing period, from June 10 to July 11, nearly half came from outside New York City. Eight donations arrived from Florida on the day of the fund-raiser, totaling $2,325.

Mr. Mamdani also posted a strong fund-raising haul during that period. He raised $852,000, including $256,000 that is eligible for public matching funds, effectively boosting his total to $1.1 million, according to his campaign. And in a sign of his growing national stature, roughly 45 percent of his contributions came from outside New York State. He now has just over $2.6 million on hand.

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, in contrast, raised just $64,000 during the recent fund-raising period, in part because he was not actively fund-raising while he mulled whether to continue his campaign as an independent in November. He has almost $1.2 million on hand, and, after releasing a video on Monday confirming his intention to run, is expected to now start focusing on raising money.

“We had not been fund-raising post-primary while we figured out our next steps,” said Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo. “But that changes today.”

The Mamdani campaign illustrated its social media savvy earlier this week, when it quickly replied to Mr. Cuomo’s relaunch video on X with a link to a fund-raising page. The fund-raising pitch had received 175,000 more likes than the video as of Wednesday, and Mr. Mamdani’s campaign said it received approximately $110,000 from roughly 2,400 donors in the 24 hours after the post went up.

The $110,000 was the second-highest one-day donation total for Mr. Mamdani since the June 24 primary; the highest was on June 25.

“Adams and Cuomo have made it clear they are competing to be the champion of the billionaire class, and Donald Trump,” said Jeffrey Lerner, a spokesman for Mr. Mamdani. “We saw how that worked out in the primary.”

Mr. Adams faces significant challenges in the race. He is far behind Mr. Mamdani and Mr. Cuomo in polls. Federal prosecutors indicted him on five corruption counts last year, only to see the Trump Justice Department abandon the case.

And even though the mayor now has almost $4.3 million on hand, he still faces an investigation from the New York City Campaign Finance Board, which has denied him valuable public matching funds over concerns about his campaign’s protocols.

The only other candidate to receive matching funds this week was Jim Walden, a lawyer who is running as an independent and has trailed in polls. He raised about $59,000 during the recent period and has roughly $1.3 million on hand. He qualified for public matching funds in April.

Mr. Walden has described Mr. Mamdani’s election as an existential threat to the city and has proposed that the other candidates take a poll in mid-September to determine who has the best chance to defeat him. The remaining candidates, he said, should drop out.

Mr. Cuomo endorsed Mr. Walden’s idea; Mr. Adams has scoffed at it, as has Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee.

“If the independents wants to play musical chairs, go ahead,” Mr. Sliwa said in an interview.

Mr. Sliwa has raised $472,000 for his campaign, including $169,000 in the most recent period, and said that he was optimistic that he would qualify for public matching funds. He has just $93,000 on hand.

Mr. Mamdani’s greater challenge was to persuade many of the city’s business and real estate leaders to support him, or at least to stop regarding him as a socialist threat to the city’s economic well-being.

He met with roughly 150 members of the Partnership for New York on Tuesday in a closed-door gathering that was often contentious and drifted to matters outside a mayor’s purview, like the meaning of the word “genocide.”

A follow-up meeting with some of the city’s tech leaders was scheduled for Wednesday. Earlier in the morning, Mr. Mamdani spoke to a private gathering of House Democrats at a restaurant in Washington.

The breakfast conversation, organized by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Mr. Mamdani in the primary, focused on Mr. Mamdani’s campaign strategy, his messaging and how he won, according to lawmakers who attended. Many of those at the meeting were among their party’s more left-leaning members.

Representative Greg Casar of Texas, the chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said that Mr. Mamdani discussed how he was able to reach voters. Locked out of power and eager to win back the House, Democrats in Washington have been eager to find messages that will resonate with voters heading into the 2026 midterm elections.

Mr. Adams is trying to send a different message. He has positioned himself as a hedge against Mr. Mamdani, and has met with some business and real estate leaders to strategize about how to defeat him.

Some of that discomfort surrounding Mr. Mamdani materialized in Mr. Adams’s campaign donations. Employees of nine real estate firms donated more than $263,000 to the mayor, comprising approximately 17 percent of his donations in the most recent period.

Mr. Adams raised $70,000 from 67 employees of SL Green Realty Corporation, a real estate investment trust that is also the city’s largest commercial landlord. Thirty-two employees of Newmark, another commercial real estate firm, donated almost $40,000.

“There’s also a growing concern about what’s at stake if we take a wrong turn,” Todd Shapiro, a spokesman for Mr. Adams’s campaign, said. “Voters are looking at the alternative and saying, ‘We can’t afford to go backwards.’”

Michael Gold contributed reporting from Washington.