CityAndStateNY.com
WINNERS & LOSERS OF 2021
16
December 20, 2021 - January 3, 2022
ERIC ADAMS
2021 GIVETH, AND 2021 TAKETH AWAY. Vaccines arrived to save the day, but if you thought you could throw out your collection of face masks already, you had another thing coming. New York state got its first female governor! How did we come to this remarkable milestone? Her predecessor fell from grace after numerous damaging scandals. This was accompanied by a realignment of power at the state Capitol that legalized recreational marijuana and online sports betting. There was also a whole lot of change in New York City’s political ecosystem – so many new faces will be joining the City Council, with historic representation for women, Asian Americans, Latinos and LGBTQ people. And how about that new guy coming into the mayor’s office? We might have to adjust the timing of First Read when 2022 mayoral press briefings start taking place at 5:30 a.m. Without further ado, here’s who ended the year on top of the world, and who ended up as a persona non grata.
Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor-elect, is a master of the art of persuasion. How else could he pass the ultimate political test of winning a New York City Democratic primary? Who, at age 15, would see the kid beaten in the basement of a police precinct and think he’d one day be a cop? Who, in 1996, would look at the rabble-rousing police officer, hated by many of his colleagues and under constant investigation, and think he would become an elected official? Who, in 2006, would look at this candidate running for state Senate, so supremely confident in himself, and think he’d actually become mayor? But by the time 2016 rolled around, politicos were taking the Brooklyn borough president seriously as a contender. And five years later, he did it: winning the June Democratic primary with 50.4% of the vote, once the rankedchoice voting tabulation played out, and winning the general election in November with a commanding 67% of the vote. It was the culmination of years of planning, but that doesn’t mean that success was guaranteed. He faced an uncertain race with surprising – and strong – opponents. You can laugh at Andrew Yang, but he struck a nerve and won over a lot of Asian voters who Adams thought would be part of his coalition. And who would have thought Kathryn Garcia, the lowkey bureaucrat, would catch fire? But Adams stuck to his plan, emphasizing his outer borough, Black working-class roots. The former cop was perfectly positioned to speak to the New Yorkers who were worried about an increase in certain crimes, while his history as a critic of the department meant that criticisms that he’d let the NYPD run rampant didn’t stick. And after the primary? Adams owned the long honeymoon. Every power broker in the city, the state, the country wanted to meet him, and he took the meetings – sometimes past midnight, often wearing a sharp red blazer, and always looking like he won a Grammy along with the keys to Gracie Mansion. As hard as the election was, Adams has to know that was the easy part compared to what lies ahead. He’ll make mistakes – the mayor-elect said he’s “perfectly imperfect” – but you can’t ever take away the fact that that kid from Queens was elected mayor of the greatest city in the world. Eric Adams always believed in himself, and in 2021, he persuaded the rest of the city to believe in him too.
