Ackman said he wants someone with ‘enormous energy’ to take on Democratic socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams can pull off a victory in the November election if former Gov. Andrew Cuomo withdraws, said billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman in a July 3 post on social media platform X.
“The only candidates with a credible chance to beat [Zohran Mamdani] are Cuomo and Adams,” Ackman said. Mamdani is the Democratic mayoral candidate.
In his post, Ackman said that he had met with Adams and Cuomo, and his takeaway was that “Adams can win the upcoming election and that the Governor should step aside to maximize Adams’ probability of success,” adding that he had high regard for Cuomo’s contributions to the state.
“But it was abundantly clear in [Cuomo’s] body language, his subdued energy, and his proposals to beat Mamdani, that he is not up for the fight,” he said.
Ackman, meanwhile, had high praise for Adams.
“Mayor Adams is ready to go to battle, guns blazing with enormous energy and clarity on why Mamdani and his socialist/communist (‘We must seize the means of production’) and anti-NYPD policies would be catastrophic for NYC. Adams is a great campaigner who can lead the grass roots effort needed to defeat Mamdani, and as mayor, he has a great platform to tell his story,” he said.
Cuomo resigned from the post of New York governor in 2021 after a sexual harassment investigation found him guilty. Cuomo denied the allegations and has never been convicted of criminal offenses.
Adams launched his reelection campaign on June 26. Though he won his first election as a Democrat, he is currently running as an independent. He said in April that this was because a corruption case filed against him was dragging on for too long for him to launch a primary campaign.
The case was brought on by the Justice Department during the Biden administration and was dismissed by a federal judge in April. Adams has maintained his innocence.
New York state Rep. Mamdani won the June 24 Democratic primary for the NYC mayoral post, with Cuomo conceding the race. He officially became the Democratic Party’s nominee for mayor after primary results were published on July 1.
Despite the loss, Cuomo suggested he might still run for the post as an independent. Cuomo had announced the formation of a new political party in May.
