Mayor Eric Adams’ re-election bid was denied matching funds once again — this time losing out on $3 million as the city’s campaign finance watchdog accused his camp of obstruction.
The City Campaign Finance Board hinted the mayor, who is running as an independent in the November election, may never see a dime as it believes his first campaign for City Hall in 2021 may have violated the law.
“The board determined Mayor Adams campaign has failed to demonstrate eligibility for public funds payments at this time, on two grounds. One, failure to provide requested information and two, reason to believe the campaign has violated the law with respect to the failure to provide requested information,” said Board Chair Frank Schaffer.
“The board finds the campaign has provided incomplete and misleading information to the CFB, and has impeded the CFB staff’s ability to complete its investigation,” Schaffer said of the regulatory body’s ongoing probe into alleged misconduct during Adams’ 2021 campaign.
The board has repeatedly refused to allow Adams’ re-election bid to cash in on the city’s generous 8-to-1 matching funds program, starting in December, when it first cut the mayor off from the program.
It has cited both Adams’ since-dismissed federal indictment on bribery and corruption charges, and his team’s refusal to answer a number of outstanding demands for documentation about fundraising.
The campaign has maintained that it is up to date with the board’s requests. It expected the spigot of taxpayer cash to be turned on after securing a win in court last month, when a judge ruled Adams could not be denied funds based on the past criminal case.
“We are reviewing all legal options, including formal action to compel the release of public matching funds,” said campaign spokesperson Todd Shapiro. “We will not allow a vague and bureaucratic process to undermine the democratic right of our supporters to participate in this election.”
The denial delivers another blow to Adams, who is struggling to recover from poor approval numbers and the political fallout from his case dismissal.
His re-elect bid pulled in a massive $1.5 million haul after socialist Zohran Mamdani’s upset win in the June Democratic primary, bringing Adams’ total fundraising to over $6 million in private donations.
Hizzoner is within $2 million of the $8 million fundraising threshold, and the CFB estimates he has about $4.27 million left to spend as of July.
At the same time, the board approved $1.68 million in matching funds for Mamdani and signed off on $1.91 million for GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa.
Mamdani maxed out his fundraising in the primary, bringing in over $7 million. The latest campaign boost brings his cash on hand to over $5 million, while Sliwa has over $2 million to spend with the new matching funds.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent after his embarrassing defeat to Mamdani in the Dem primary, did not fundraise during the last period, according to his campaign. As of July 15, he had $1.17 million to spend of his cash from the primary race.
Independent Jim Walden was also granted $237,000 in taxpayer money for the general election, bringing his account balance to around $1.6 million.
