NYC Democratic Mayor Hopeful Eric Adams Is Being Compared To Trump After He Questioned Election Results

Eric Adams pitched himself to New York City residents as a centrist. Of the many Democratic candidates for mayor, he was arguably the most unique: a former Republican, a former NYPD officer. He knew the other side intimately, and promised he wouldn’t pull any of their crap. But a week after the primary election, he did something surprising: After his once-commanding lead narrowed as more votes were counted, he dared question the legitimacy of the still-in-progress count, giving off strong vibes of You Know Who.

The primary saw the nation’s most populated city experimenting with something new: Rather than pick one favorite, voters would rank as many as five. It’s a first for the city, and it promised to delay the outcome not for days but weeks. The initial tally put Adams well ahead of his closest competitor, former Sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia. But a week later, as more votes trickled in, that lead shrank, from several percentage points to just a few. Rather than accept a conclusion everyone knew was likely, Adams played a Trump card.

“The vote total just released by the Board of Elections is 100,000-plus more than the total announced on election night, raising serious questions,” read a statement from Adams’ team. “We have asked the Board of Elections to explain such a massive increase and other irregularities before we comment on the Rank Choice Voting projection.”

Not long after Adams’ statement was made public, the city’s Board of Elections put out their own, admitting there “is a discrepancy in the unofficial RCV round by round elimination report.” Though they didn’t go into details, they said they “are working with our RCV technical staff to identify where the discrepancy occurred. We ask the public, elected officials and candidates to have patience,”

To many, Adams’ statement was triggering, summoning up memories of the aftermath to the 2020 election, in which the 45th president aggressively contested a free and fair election, even after it was clear his accusations were baseless (and often convoluted). And they were not happy to be back in that nightmare headspace.

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The Trump vibes were so strong even Don Jr. tweeted about it. But others were not that surprised that Adams would pull this.

Don jr https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1409998713708240901

Others put the blame on the decision to try out a new form of voting so soon after an election that inspired grifters to take advantage of a degree of uncertainty.

And others were worried that this — questionable, if not baseless, questioning of election results — were now the new normal, if even a Democratic candidate was willing to go there.

In other words, fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be another bumpy election.

(Via Yahoo! News)