New York City Mayor Eric Adams looks on during a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing to examine the jurisdiction of “sanctuary cities” on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 5, 2025. 

Kent Nishimura | Reuters

New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Friday said he would not drop out of the city’s mayoral race, after a The New York Times report that advisors to President Donald Trump were working on a plan to nominate Adams as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia to convince him to abandon his campaign.

Trump wants two candidates to drop out of the race to make it easier for one remaining challenger to defeat the Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, who is the clear front-runner.

“I’m running for reelection,” Adams said.

“I’m going to beat Mamdani,” the mayor said.

He walked away from reporters without answering questions after his statement outside his Gracie Mansion residence.

If Adams were to drop out of his long-shot bid to win re-election as New York’s mayor, it could boost the chances of independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York.

“I would say that Cuomo might have a chance of winning if it was a one-on-one,” Trump told reporters shortly after Adams’ statement. “If it’s not one-on-one, it’s going to be a hard race.”

“I think if you have more than one candidate. We’ve got ourselves a communist mayor in New York,” the president said.

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Adams and Cuomo are both Democrats.

But Adams is running for reelection as an independent.

He decided not to seek the Democratic nomination after facing falling public approval ratings and after being criminally indicted on federal corruption charges.

That criminal case was dropped in April at the request of the Trump administration.

Mamdani handily defeated Cuomo in the Democratic primary.

The Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa, has said he plans to remain in the race.