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Andrew Cuomo appears to be the wealthiest. Eric Adams faces legal bills. Zohran Mamdani owns land near the Nile. Curtis Sliwa splurges on his cats.
Sept. 28, 2025, 3:00 a.m. ET
A pile of debts owed to lawyers. Stock options worth millions. A stretch of land near the Nile River. A big bill for cat food. These are among the entries in the financial ledgers of the top candidates vying to be mayor of New York City.
All the candidates have focused on the city’s dwindling affordability as a central theme of their campaigns. But their own ability to afford city life varies widely, in a metropolis where the average studio apartment goes for $3,225 a month, and even the cost of chicken and rice from a street cart has risen 66 percent since the pandemic.
Financial disclosures filed to the city government don’t require a tally of cash accounts, so an assessment of a candidate’s net worth is merely an estimate. For instance, Forbes has estimated former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s net worth to be about $10 million. Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s appears to be about $200,000. But the disclosures offer a window into the finances of the candidates who want to run New York. And one financial windfall is guaranteed by the outcome of the race: The winner can live rent-free in Gracie Mansion.
Here’s how the finances of the four top candidates stack up:
Mayor Eric Adams
Party: Democrat, but running as an independent
The federal corruption case of Mayor Eric Adams, which was dropped in April, left him about $3 million in debt to prominent law firms and other companies that helped with his legal case, according to filings to the city earlier this year.
A legal-defense fund, which was set up for the mayor in November 2023, had included donations of more than $1.8 million, but donations appear to have come to a stop, according to filings.
