Right and there on WNYC, veteran city politics reported Ben Max has a new story out in New

York magazine's Intelligencer about the city's progressive left, specifically the crisis

that he says it faces in unifying behind and even identifying a candidate capable of

challenging centrist incumbent as they see it, Eric Adams, in the Democratic mayoral primary

in 2025. Seems like a long way off, but Ben Max writes that despite significant disapproval

of Adams on the left, there is skepticism about finding a candidate who could appeal to both

mainstream and more progressive Democrats while standing up against the incumbent, while some

potential candidates may be laying the groundwork he reports others remain hesitant. So we'll talk

about the particular dynamics of the electoral playing field and get a few more thoughts from

Ben Max, veteran New York City politics reporter and host of the Max politics podcast, including

what the city council election that's underway right now that many consider a low stakes election

might tell the progressive left about what kind of candidate might be best challenged

Eric Adams in 2025. I've been welcome back to WNYC always glad to can join us. Hi Brian,

thanks for having me. So you write the mayor's political standing is somewhat hard to diagnose

and could change between now and the primary obviously since it's a year and a half away or more.

Do you want to expand on that just to get us started? Sure, I mean I think Eric Adams

seems to continue to have a lot of support from the coalition that he wrote into office.

It's important to note in all this discussion as I write in the piece that we're really focused

in New York City politics other than a few city council districts and maybe some

burrow-wide elections on Staten Island. We're mostly always focused on the outcomes of the

Democratic primary even as we've seen the city move a little bit back towards the right in certain

ways and Lee Zeldin doing a little better than expected in the gubernatorial election last year in

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