Eric Adams confronts Latino voter problem

NEW YORK — Eric Adams’ standing with Latino voters is plummeting in a looming threat to his reelection campaign next year.

His approval rating with the critical constituency has fallen in poll after poll of general-election voters, posing a serious risk for a mayor who came into office with a multicultural, working-class base keen on his tough-on-crime message.

It wasn’t always this way: New York Latinos, a polylithic group ranging from Democratic Socialists to the Republican-curious, were integral to Adams’ winning coalition in 2021. But frustration with crime, disorder and his handling of the migrant crisis have sunk Adams in four recent public-opinion surveys, which show him under water with Latinos, who often view him more negatively than any other demographic.

“Anecdotally, Latinos are not happy with how things are going. And in many ways, the mayor is blamed,” said Eli Valentin, a political analyst and expert on Latino politics who is not affiliated with Adams or his potential opponents. “We may see a potential for a doomsday scenario for the mayor if things don’t turn around for him.”

The Democratic mayor’s standing with voters who helped propel him to office comes at a particularly tough time for him: A migrant crisis abounds, federal agents are probing his close advisers and just this week Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul deployed National Guard troops to patrol the subways Adams promised to keep safe.

In private conversations, members of his team acknowledged the concern. But they were bullish on his chances of recapturing Latino voters, particularly given the far-left policies of some of his potential primary challengers that they believe are out of step with the typical Latino voter.

“No one has a longer, more productive history of fighting for working-class people of color than Eric Adams, and he’s continued to deliver for them as mayor with record investments in tax breaks, housing assistance and child care subsidies alongside declining crime and the highest private sector jobs numbers ever,” senior Adams adviser Evan Thies said in a statement.

Thies pointed out Adams has inked labor contracts with the city’s vast municipal workforce — many of whom are of Latin American descent — and has driven down the cost of subsidized child care.

Adams will have another opportunity to repair the damage this weekend, when he heads to Albany to attend an annual networking conference with accompanying soirees hosted by a prominent Latino nonprofit organization, SOMOS.

Three years ago, his relationship with this voting group was peaking.

With just four weeks to go in New York City’s bare-knuckles mayoral primary, Adams secured the coveted endorsement of one of New York’s most prominent Latino leaders. Outside a storied theater in a Dominican enclave in Manhattan, Rep. Adriano Espaillat declared his preferred candidate would “unite this city.”

The event was cause for celebration: The Dominican-American Congress member had switched allegiances to back Adams and brought with him a slate of Latino leaders. Adams ended up winning the Bronx, the borough with the most Spanish-speaking residents. He trounced his nearest rival by 24 points in another area of Queens with a large Latin American population.

In all, Adams won more than 35 percent of the Latino vote in the first round of ranked-choice voting in the 13-candidate field and nearly 60 percent by the final round, according to an analysis his campaign shared with POLITICO.

“Hola, mi gente. Let me tell you, when you do an analysis of my success, my success of becoming the mayor of the City of New York is because of this community,” he said at a Hispanic heritage celebration during his first year in office. “I'll never forget that when people thought it was impossible, you came out over and over and over again.”

Today, he’s testing the limits of that support.

A Quinnipiac University poll in December showing Adams with a record-low 28 percent approval revealed another troubling trend line: Just 20 percent of Latino voters approved of the job he was doing, while 65 percent disapproved. The same survey of 1,297 registered voters found Latinos registered the highest rates of concern among any demographic with how Adams handles homelessness, the city budget and the migrant surge.

The majority of migrants are from Spanish-speaking countries. Several Latino leaders said voters feel a particular connection to them and were troubled when the mayor said the cost and logistical challenges of housing and serving an unknown number of homeless migrants “will destroy this city.”

Luis Miranda, a political consultant who is friendly with the mayor, added: “You cannot be doing all the right things he is doing to receive migrants into the city and then that same day talk about how they’re going to destroy the city. For us, it creates an incredible cognitive dissonance.”

City Council member Carmen De La Rosa said Latinos are also troubled by Adams’ budget cuts to popular city programs — some of which he’s begun to reverse.

“As an immigrant and a Latino, when we see the xenophobic rhetoric that’s at play with the scapegoating of migrants, there’s a hurt there that is felt,” said De La Rosa, a member of the body’s progressive caucus.

But many Latinos are growing more politically conservative and are troubled by how many services migrants are receiving, argued New York professor of ethnic and race studies J.C. Polanco — a former Republican who now identifies as an independent.

“Latinos are very concerned about the migrant crisis because we see it as unsustainable. We see no end in sight,” Polanco said. “Yes, we are a nation of immigrants. But a lot of these folks are not coming through points of entry where we know who they are.”

“The mayor is not xenophobic; the mayor lives in reality,” he added.

Quinnipiac was not the only problematic poll for Adams.

A Siena College poll of 807 statewide voters in January found Latinos were his harshest critics on his management of the migrant crisis: 68 percent disapproved, and just 17 percent approved.

And Marist College and Slingshot Strategies polls late last year among state and city voters, respectively, revealed similar fissures.

Adams has made clear he is not ignoring the Latino vote. He’s held cultural events and flag raisings and makes consistent appearances in the Spanish press.

But Adams — who is very conscious of his public appearance — doesn’t attempt to speak Spanish at press conferences like his predecessors, Mike Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio. (Bloomberg was mocked for his distinct accent, inspiring a Twitter handle spoofing his efforts.)

“I have said to him, you need to learn a little Spanish,” Miranda said. “Look at Michael Bloomberg, he killed Spanish. Every time I heard him I cringed. But Latinos loved it, because it showed respect and a desire to reach out.”

Among Adams’ potential 2025 challengers are several Latinos, including state Sens. Jessica Ramos and Zellnor Myrie — an Afro-Latino with family roots in Costa Rica — and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

Reynoso declined to endorse any candidate in the 2021 primary, but he suggested Adams would be vulnerable in 2025.

“A large segment of the Latino population didn’t know Eric Adams before he was mayor,” he said in an interview. “They know exactly who he is now, and are going to hold him accountable to the work he’s doing now.”

Latinos make up about one-fifth of the primary electorate, but the number could be higher if the right candidate were to run and get out the vote.

Asked in January about Adams’ weak support among Latinos, Espaillat brushed it off.

“A week in politics is an eternity. And this election is next year,” he said. Adding that crime is trending downwards. “So a lot could happen.”