Trump’s Big Win Was Also a Win for Eric Adams

It's much too soon to draw hard conclusions about why Donald Trump won reelection, beyond the obvious fact that he got more votes than Kamala Harris. But a look at the winners and losers among New York's power players provides a window into what we're in for over the next four years.

While Trump has functionally escaped legal jeopardy by winning the election , the other criminal defendant breathing a sigh of relief after Trump's election is Mayor Eric Adams, who is currently scheduled to go on trial in April on corruption charges. Thanks to Trump, the mayor's day in court may never come.

Damien Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District whose office indicted Adams, is a presidential appointee who will almost certainly be replaced by Trump. Recall that back in 2017, less than two months into the first Trump term, his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, abruptly and publicly fired 46 U.S. Attorneys who had been appointed by President Obama. That list included Preet Bharara , a mentor and predecessor of Williams.

After getting rid of Bharara, Trump named — and later fired — Geoffrey Berman as his successor. Berman's days were numbered when he began investigating and prosecuting members of Trump's inner circle; Berman was replaced by Jay Clayton , a Wall Street securities attorney and golf buddy of the president.

It's hard to imagine that Williams will not be replaced by Trump and gone long before Adams's trial date. And that's where things get interesting.

It's not at all clear that a new Trump-picked prosecutor will continue the corruption case against Adams, especially in light of the subtle political quasi-alliance between Trump and the mayor. "I know what it's like to be persecuted by the DOJ for speaking out against open borders," Trump semi-joked at the nationally televised Al Smith charity dinner. "We were persecuted, Eric. I was persecuted, and so are you, Eric."

The wisecrack reflects Trump's oft-stated accusation that his legal troubles were the result of a targeted, politically motivated prosecution personally ordered by President Biden, a charge for which Trump has never produced an ounce of evidence. Adams has privately made the same charge, also without evidence or a theory of why he has supposedly been targeted for retribution.

For the record, Williams denies being told by the White House or anybody else to investigate or prosecute Adams. And it's worth noting that lots of mayors have publicly criticized the Biden administration's immigration and migrant policy, some of them in scathing terms. The leaders of Chicago , Denver , Miami , El Paso , and a string of border towns in Texas, Arizona, and California have all complained, but Adams is the only to have been arrested and charged.

It's conceivable that whomever Trump appoints to take over the Southern District could receive direct or indirect orders from the president to drop or stall the case of United States v. Eric Adams as the mayor runs for reelection next year. And there's always the possibility of a presidential pardon .

"If I am Eric Adams, I am sleeping a little more peacefully tonight knowing Donald Trump will be in charge and not Kamala Harris," says political-science professor Christina Greer.

Despite losing three congressional seats, the New York Republicans have reason to cheer. Shortly after the polls closed in New York on Election Night, Ed Cox, chairman of the state party, stood in a crowded ballroom laying out a theory and a spot-on prediction of Trump's looming victory on live television .

"The major issue is inflation. Two-thirds of the voters live paycheck to paycheck. Because of inflation, their paychecks are worth 5 percent and 15 percent less. And they are angry," Cox told me. "They are going to come out en masse and vote for Donald Trump in all these contested states and the swing states in particular, which is why I feel we are going to win all the swing states. And he'll end up with, probably, 309 electoral votes, if not more."

That was a pretty good call. Within hours of our conversation, Trump had swept all seven swing states and ended up with 312 electoral votes. And while he lost New York City to Kamala Harris, 68 percent to 30 percent, that margin is 16 points tighter than the blowout numbers Biden got in 2020, sparking a round of talk about the GOP making inroads in working-class communities like the ones in Sunset Park and Bensonhurst — where, last week, Republican Steven Chan unseated State Senator Iwen Chu.

Two local GOP stalwarts have already been tapped for cabinet positions: Representative Elise Stefanik has been asked to serve as Trump's U.N. ambassador and ex-representative Lee Zeldin is being nominated as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. That gives Cox and the state GOP an opening for possible patronage jobs, the lifeblood of a political party.

Governor Kathy Hochul came up a big winner on Election Night, receiving public praise from her fellow Democrats for creating and funding a unified, aggressive statewide field operation that helped unseat incumbent Republican members of Congress on Long Island, the Hudson Valley, and upstate.

Hochul is widely expected to deploy New York's new consolidated campaign machinery in her reelection effort in 2026. She can also claim vindication for pausing the city's congestion-pricing plan, a toll on vehicles traveling into midtown and lower Manhattan that was shaping up as a popular campaign issue for angry suburban Republican lawmakers. Hochul may have a hard time ever getting the toll plan started — back in May, Trump vowed on social media to "TERMINATE Congestion Pricing in my FIRST WEEK back in Office!!" — but her gambit paid off politically this year.

Hochul's efforts, helped the local Democrat who may have scored the biggest win: Brooklyn's Hakeem Jeffries. "I'm so thankful to the coordinated campaign effort that was put together from the very beginning in the aftermath of the 2022 midterm elections led by Governor Kathy Hochul," Jeffries told me . "It was an all-hands-on-deck effort. We lost a total of four Republican held seats in New York in 2022. We've now won four Republican held seats back in 2024."

Thanks to those flips, Jeffries is on the brink of potentially becoming the Speaker of the House, the country's most powerful elected Democrat. "We still have a clear pathway to taking back the majority that runs through Arizona and Oregon and five races that are flip opportunities in California that are too close to call and too early to call," he said, reminding despondent Dems that Trump's victory did not lead to an across-the-board Republican sweep.

"Donald Trump did better than almost any other Republican presidential candidate in modern political history here in New York State, and even won several of the districts that we either held or flipped. And notwithstanding that, we were able to defeat three Republican incumbents," says Jeffries. "Donald Trump is a uniquely peculiar, interesting political figure. But the reality is he'll be president, but will not be on the ballot again moving forward."