Harry Siegel: Adams and his plans are neck-deep in duck soup

A new poll confirms an obvious truth often obscured by New York City’s many Potemkin elections:

Almost no one cares about corruption and ramshackle governance in their own right even if lots of people care about the problems those contribute to.

With Eric Adams’ trial on historic bribery and corruption charges against a sitting mayor scheduled for April, just 2% of voters here asked about “the most important problem facing New York City today” said “corruption/poor governance.”

That’s according to a New York Times/Siena College poll this month of 853 registered city voters, where 27% said “crime” was the top problem, 19% said “immigrants/immigration,” 15% said “cost of living/poverty” and 13% said “housing/rent prices.” 

Nothing else hit even 5%.

It’s a different story in the presidential election, where 10% of city voters said their top issue is “the state of democracy/corruption,” trailing only “abortion” (12%), “immigration” (13%) and “the economy” (19%). 

Among Kamala Harris voters, 15% said democracy/corruption was their top concern, trailing only abortion at 18%.

It’s a mathematical certainty that many of the Democrats who see Donald Trump as an existential threat to American democracy are among the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers who see Adams as a bad guy.

Trump clearly doesn’t agree with or care about that assessment, as he’s gone out of his way in the closing days of his campaign to repeatedly praise Adams. 

The Republican keeps publicly amplifying the Democratic mayor’s conspiratorial suggestion that the charges against him in a federal investigation that began while he was still Brooklyn borough president are somehow political payback for criticizing the Biden administration’s immigration policies years later.

Adams, for his part, won’t answer questions about when he last spoke with Trump. While the mayor endorsed the Democrat in the presidential race, he’s taken pains in recent weeks to avoid even saying Harris’ name.

While Adams may be hoping a new Trump administration could get him off the legal hook with federal prosecutors and otherwise benefit him, New Yorkers aren’t buying into the idea that he’s being railroaded. 

However the presidential race and the criminal case against him play out, there’s little chance Adams will win another term as mayor next year even if he stays in office and in that race.

Seventy-six percent of voters here say the mayor has done something illegal (52%) or unethical (24%). Just 7% say he’s done nothing wrong.

A staggering eleven people think Adams is dirty for every one who thinks he’s clean. 

And the 98% of New Yorkers who think the city has more pressing concerns than corruption aren’t sold on the job the mayor is doing. 

Three years after New Yorkers elected him, just 35% of voters say the city is on the right track. An even more dismal 25% approve of the mayor’s job performance.

Nearly half of New Yorkers, 47%, say they strongly disapprove of the job Adams is doing while just 8% strongly approve. That’s six confirmed haters for every remaining fan.

Those numbers are a resounding answer to Hizzoner’s feeble spin on the old question, first posed by Chico Marx in “Duck Soup,” of Who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes? 

While the mayor isn’t on the ballot this year, New York City voters will have their say on five ballot proposals — Questions 2 to 6 — from his hastily-convened Charter Revision Commission. 

Adams made an anodyne case for those proposals, which have unobjectionable titles on the ballot like “Cleaning Public Property,” in an op-ed in the Daily News on Friday — after 700,000 New Yorkers had already voted. 

The idea had been that Democrats turning out to cast presidential ballots would just check off “yes” on these things. 

But an organized opposition has been actively encouraging New Yorkers to vote “no” on 2 through 6, fairly describing the measures as a mayoral power grab intended to keep other proposals off of the ballot. 

It may turn out that what was intended to be a Potemkin election could be a referendum on Adams — fresh proof of how little trust or faith New Yorkers retain in Hizzoner as he keeps trying to bluster and bargain his way out of the corner he’s painted himself into. 

Siegel (harrysiegel@gmail.com) is an editor at The City, a host of the FAQ NYC podcast and a columnist for the Daily News.