Literally no one thinks Eric Adams was best mayor in modern NYC history: poll

On this one thing, they all agree.

Eric Adams was hit with putrid job approval numbers in a humiliating poll released Tuesday – as 0% of respondents said they’d remember him as one of the city’s best mayors.

The Honan Strategy Group survey, released days before the end of Adams sole four-year term, showed that a whopping 69% of likely voters disapproved of his job performance while 71% described Adams’ leadership style as “chaotic” and “unfocused.”

That assessment comes despite Hizzoner’s key catchphrase: “Stay Focused, No Distraction and Grind!”

The survey, which was independent and conducted from Dec. 4 to 12, revealed a “brutal’ legacy rating, with not a single one of the nearly 850 people polled saying they would remember Adams as one of the best modern mayors.

A staggering 30% of the respondents said the so-called Night Life mayor will go down as one of the worst in recent history, and another 38% believed he was “below-average.”

Another 63% believe Adams, whose time as mayor was marred by scandal and allegations of corruption, added to the level of uncertainty the city has been facing coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown.

The outgoing mayor even took a beating on his top issue, crime — which his administration has made notable progress on since police Commissioner Jessica Tischa took in 2022 over after a stretch of infighting and instability in the NYPD. Only 30% of those polled said they believe Adams made meaningful progress on crime and safety, while 59% said he failed, the poll showed.

The city has seen a sizable drop in murders, shootings and retail theft, but overall major crime has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, with the latest figures showing 2025 crime is up by a little more than 20% compared to 2019.

The mayor’s first-term was largely derailed by federal corruption charges that were brought during the Biden administration and subsequently dropped by the Trump administration earlier this year. Adams had been elected as a Democrat, but he skipped a Democratic Party primary in the heat of the scandal and briefly ran as an independent before officially dropping out of the race.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in to replace Adams Jan. 1.

Adams has pushed back repeatedly on how he’ll be remembered.

Just last week, he told reporters, “I think history is going to be kind when we reflect on these four years of the relationship that we developed during some extremely difficult times.”

Overall, with just one more day in office, 43% of respondents in the poll said Adams made the city worse than he found it, and another 41% said he had no effect.

A mere 14% believe things were better over the last four years, the Honan poll found.