Adams’ re-election fundraising fails after indictment

NEW YORK – Mayor Eric Adams, normally a great fundraiser, brought in just one $250 donation in the two and a half weeks since his federal indictment.

According to a filing Tuesday with the New York City Campaign Finance Board, Adams has raised $212,416 in the past three months, which was first reported by POLITICO. That made it his slowest fundraising period since he took office and began planning for his re-election in 2025.

Adams’ lack of campaign support after the indictment contrasts with former President Donald Trump, whose team said it raised more than $15 million in the two weeks after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted him .

Trump has aggressively solicited donations due to his legal troubles, while the New York mayor doesn’t even have a campaign website. His team doesn’t send standard emails or text messages asking for money and doesn’t have an easily accessible online fundraising portal.

Instead, the embattled mayor’s campaign is hosting fundraisers, such as a Saturday dinner hosted by his brother Bernard at a Chinese restaurant in Queens and a birthday party for the mayor at a club in Manhattan.

Adams had also asked for money for his legal defense fund, whose quarterly report is due Tuesday.

Compliance lawyer Vito Pitta declined to disclose the total amount of donations raised in advance, but a person familiar with the operation said fundraising revenue also fell after Adams was criminally charged and the fund’s managers temporarily halted fundraising efforts.

Adams’ campaign has raised relatively little money since July. But the person familiar with his fundraising, who was granted anonymity to speak about internal discussions, said that was intentional and that the mayor stopped fundraising after making a final attempt to exceed his spending limit of about $7 million -Dollars for the area code – as long as he receives public matching funds.

“Mayor Adams continues to receive strong support from New Yorkers – and the campaign has now increased the maximum amount it can spend in the primary election and is expected to provide matching funds for his re-election well ahead of schedule,” Pitta said in a statement .

Adams reported raising $4.14 million for his re-election campaign and still has $3.11 million. That’s a huge lead over all of his declared challengers. City Comptroller Brad Lander, the top-funded Democrat to take on Adams, raised $967,381 and former Comptroller Scott Stringer brought in $591,116 for their respective bids.

The Campaign Finance Board has yet to decide whether it will award Adams the $4.35 million in public matching funds his campaign reportedly qualified for. Federal prosecutors accused Adams of running an illegal straw donor scheme, which board officials would consider before the first scheduled payout in December.

Even if it is granted appropriate funding, the board has already marked a third of the claims as “invalid,” THE CITY reported.

Adams’ filing showed his campaign returned nearly $83,000 in donations during that period, a higher rate than usual.

Even without matching funds, Adams would still have more than $3 million at his disposal, but his lead would be wiped out if Lander or Stringer received public funding. Lander expects up to $3.49 million in December and Stringer says he’s qualified for $2.47 million.

Lander’s campaign is excited about this scenario.

“Given Brad’s strong fundraising and major questions surrounding Eric Adams’ ability to qualify for matching funds due to his federal indictment, Brad Lander has raised the most money – and has the most to spend – of any mayoral candidate,” Landers said Counselor Rebecca Rodriguez said in a statement.

The city government will match $8 for every $1 raised – up to $250 – from New York donors through one of the most generous campaign finance programs in the country.

Adams’ filing also revealed that he appears to have cut ties with Brianna Suggs, his former campaign fundraiser whose home was raided by federal investigators last fall.

Adams has not reported any payments to Suggs since April — although the mayor said in July she was still working on the campaign as a “principal administrator.”