New York City Mayor Eric Adams said last week’s reelection loss of his Chicago counterpart is a “warning sign for the country” and that fellow Democrats ignore the issue of crime at the party’s peril.
(Bloomberg) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams said last week’s reelection loss of his Chicago counterpart is a “warning sign for the country” and that fellow Democrats ignore the issue of crime at the party’s peril.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot came in third in a top-two primary election last Tuesday after a campaign that turned largely on the city’s skyrocketing crime rate. Adams told CNN on Sunday that her loss vindicates his tougher-on-crime policies, including a surge of police officers in the subway.
“Mayors, we are closest to the problems. I stated on the campaign trail and in the city — public safety is a prerequisite to prosperity, same as Chicago, like New York, and many of our big cities across America,” Adams said. “People want to be safe.”
Adams’s comments on CNN’s “State of the Union” underscore the divisions among Democrats on crime, as centrists rebuff “defund the police” rhetoric from the party’s progressive wing ahead of President Joe Biden’s likely reelection campaign in 2024.
Biden exposed those divisions last week when he said he would sign a Republican-led bill to overturn a rewrite of local criminal laws in the nation’s capital. Adams appeared to take Biden’s side on Sunday. “That’s the way our country operates,” he said.
Read more: Biden’s About-Face on DC Crime Bill Shows Democrats on Defensive
Biden’s reversal on the issue has angered some in his own party because it interferes with self-governance in the District of Columbia — and gives credence to a Republican talking point that sentencing reform necessarily makes communities more dangerous.
Adams has come under similar criticism within his own party for his focus on crime. Republicans won a number of Democratic-leaning suburban districts in New York, including a Long Island seat now held by George Santos, in part because of relentless attacks over the issue.
Adams said he’s just following where the voters are.
“I listen to Americans and New Yorkers,” he said. “The polls were clear. New Yorkers felt unsafe and the numbers showed that they were unsafe. Now, if we want to ignore what the everyday public is stating, it’s up to them.”
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