Almost 7 in 10 New Yorkers want Mayor Eric Adams to step down after he was indicted last week for soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations, according to a Marist poll released Friday.
The poll found that 69 percent of New York City residents—including 71 percent of Democrats—say Adams should resign immediately. Around 65 percent of residents, including 68 percent of Democrats, think Adams committed illegal acts while 24 percent say the mayor acted unethically but not illegally. Only 8 percent believe Adams did nothing wrong.
Adams, indicted Sept. 25, is facing five charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. For at least a decade as the Brooklyn borough president, Adams "sought and accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him," federal prosecutors said in the indictment.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D.) pressured the mayor to "clean house" during a phone call last week but did not ask Adams to step down, CNN reported. Around 63 percent of the city’s residents think Hochul should take steps to remove Adams from office, according to the Friday poll.
Adams, the first mayor in the city’s history to be indicted while in office, pleaded not guilty last Friday, calling the accusations against him "entirely false" and "based on lies."
The indictment follows a yearslong federal investigation into whether Adams’s 2021 mayoral campaign illegally received donations from Turkey, and whether the mayor pressured the city’s fire department officials to expedite the opening of a Turkish government-backed building in Manhattan despite safety concerns.
Adams was "showered" with gifts that he knew to be illegal but "kept the public in the dark" for many years, Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said.
Adams’s job approval rating has sunk to 26 percent, down from 37 percent last November. Only 18 percent of the poll’s respondents think he should seek another term in 2025.