Will Mayor Eric Adams drop out of the New York City mayoral race?

That is the speculation Wednesday morning after Mr. Adams traveled to Florida on Tuesday for “a personal matter,” amid low poll numbers and recent indictments for corruption among his inner circle. Is President Trump intervening to try to prevent a Mayor Zohran Mamdani in his hometown? And is Mr. Adams — facing an unsteady future post-Gracie Mansion — being offered something lucrative in exchange for dropping his long-shot re-election bid?

“I believe that President Trump is very much concerned about the mayor’s race, and something’s going to happen in the next 10 days,” the grocery store billionaire and former Republican mayoral candidate, John Catsimatidis, told the  Sun on Tuesday. He wouldn’t elaborate.

“Don’t be surprised if he’s out of the race before ‘2WAY2WAY Tonight,’” a closely read political journalist, Mark Halperin, said Wednesday morning, referring to his nightly news program. “This is a guy who likes to trade things,” Mr. Halperin said regarding Mr. Adams and speculation on what he’s potentially being offered in exchange for dropping out.

All summer, since a Democratic Socialist state assemblyman, Zohran Mamdani, trounced Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary by 12 points, moderate Democrats, independents, businesspeople, some Republicans, and a cadre of billionaires have schemed about how to beat the 33-year-old self-declared socialist in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than five to one. The common consensus is that the anti-Mamdani field needs to narrow so the centrist vote isn’t divided, which could send Mr. Mamdani to Gracie Mansion. 

If the contest becomes a two-man race, Mr. Cuomo would be the favorite, Mr. Halperin said, noting that Mr. Mamdani cannot get above 40 percent support in the polls.

Mr. Adams is polling at between 7 percent and 11 percent, behind both the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa, and Mr. Cuomo a Democrat-turned-independent. Mr. Mamdani is winning in all polls in a four-way race, though an outlier poll conducted by HarrisX in July found Messrs. Sliwa and Cuomo within a few percentage points of Mr. Mamdani. In a head-to-head matchup between Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Mamdani, the former New York governor would win, according to this poll.

Mr. Adams has repeatedly said he has no intention of dropping out of the race. “I’ve never had a problem finding jobs as I transition. And that’s not what I’m looking for right now. I’m looking to continue serving the people of the City of New York,” Mr. Adams said on Pix11 News on Wednesday morning. 

The mayor’s campaign spokesman’s mailbox was full when the Sun reached out for comment.

Mr. Adams has had a tough August. A former aide and campaign volunteer, Winnie Greco, handed a reporter for the City a bag of sour cream and onion chips filled with cash in a seeming attempt at a bribe last week. Ms. Greco says an Asian tradition of offering small cash gifts was misinterpreted. Hours later, one of Mr. Adams’s senior advisors, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, was indicted on state corruption and bribery charges. These come after a string of charges against Mr. Adams’s close associates and as the mayor continues to be denied matching funds from the city’s Campaign Finance Board.

Speculation about Mr. Adams dropping out also comes as a former United States attorney and independent mayoral candidate, Jim Walden, suspended his campaign on Tuesday and urged other long-shot candidates to do the same. Mr. Walden had been pushing a pledge for the “free-market candidates” to sign to agree to drop out if they are trailing in the polls come October.

“In a choice between values and ambition, values must win,” Mr. Walden said in a statement. “For those still trailing the polls by month’s end, I implore each to consider how history will judge them if they allow vanity or stubborn ambition to usher in Mr Mamdani.”

Mr. Walden was polling in the low single digits, and his departure is unlikely to alter the race — unless this is the just just start of the field consolidating. The Guardian Angels founder, Mr. Sliwa, told the Sun he has no plans to drop out and sees his path to victory as contingent on a crowded field and him earning around 30 percent.

Mr. Cuomo is trying to position himself as the candidate who can beat Mr. Mamdani in a one-on-one race. Mr. Cuomo has ditched his failed Biden basement-style primary campaign strategy and is now out on the trail, holding press conferences, releasing a daily public schedule, and dissecting Mr. Mamdani’s radical policy prescriptions, particularly on crime. It remains to be seen if he can overcome his low favorability rating and his past sexual harassment and Covid nursing home scandals, and convince New Yorkers to give him a second chance.

Mr. Cuomo has said that he will reject any help from Mr. Trump in the race, but he reportedly couched this a little differently at a Hamptons fundraiser in August. “And Trump himself, as well as top Republicans, will say the goal is to stop Mamdani. And you’ll be wasting your vote on Sliwa. So I feel good about that,” Mr. Cuomo told attendees, according to audio obtained by Politico.

Mr. Trump’s pollster, John McLaughlin, tells the Sun he doesn’t know whether Mr. Adams is dropping out, but he calls the notion that Mr. Trump wants Mr. Mamdani to win so Republicans can run against him and his radical socialist policies in the midterms “just D.C. spin.”

“President Trump has a lot of real estate in New York City that would be negatively impacted by Zohran Mamdani’s policies,” Mr. McLaughlin says. “President Trump loves New York City and loves the people of New York City, I’m sure he wants nothing but the best for the people in New York City.”

Mr. McLaughlin also says that all this scheming from billionaires and centrist businesspeople will do little to block Mr. Mamdani from Gracie Mansion unless his opponents launch an issues-based campaign that lowers the assemblyman’s favorability rating.

“Until they raise Mamdani’s unfavorables, he’s winning,” Mr. McLaughlin says. “It’s just a function of math. Democrats will be about 70 percent of the turnout.”

“All these billionaires, they look at this as like making a deal, and they don’t know how to win elections,” he says. “It won’t matter who’s left standing if Mamdani is more popular than the opposition.”