If 2024 was a turbulent year in New York politics, 2025 may well make it look tranquil by comparison.
This year featured the indictment of a sitting mayor, high-stakes races for Congress, the passage of historic housing reforms, and the stunning pause and subsequent revival of congestion pricing. Next year, the docket looks even busier: Eric Adams is scheduled to go on trial in April, the city will hold a mayoral election, a lucrative casino sweepstakes will be decided, and New York will see how it fares with Donald Trump back in the White House.
Here are the issues that will define New York politics in 2025.
Adams goes on trial — then runs for re-election
New York’s previous three mayors won their second terms with ease and with minimal opposition from their own party. Eric Adams won’t have such luck — the incumbent mayor already faces seven challengers for the June 2025 Democratic primary, setting the stage for a lively election season in the first half of next year.
Adams has given every indication he will run for re-election despite his criminal indictment. But before he faces voters, he must face the justice system: A judge has scheduled an April 21 start date for Adams’ trial on charges that include bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal campaign contributions. (Adams has requested an earlier start date in hopes of settling the case earlier before voting begins, and his legal team moved to dismiss the bribery charge.)
As it looks now, the mayoral race will be well underway as Adams’ trial plays out. Other elections will be on the ballot next year: Candidates are already lining up to run for 10 open City Council seats whose current occupants are term-limited.
Casino battle really begins — finally
The contest for three downstate casino licenses was supposed to get underway as early as 2023, after the previous year’s state budget set the stage for gambling facilities to open in and around New York City. Instead, state regulators spent the next two years pushing deadlines as they waited for bidders to sort out local land-use questions — but the state finally set a firmer timeline this past spring, stating that applications would be due in June 2025 with licenses to be awarded by Dec. 1.
That guarantees a frenzy of lobbying and dealmaking throughout 2025, as deep-pocketed developers and gaming companies compete against each other for a chance to win a casino license estimated to generate as much as $2 billion in annual revenue. Unions like the influential Hotel and Gaming Trades Council are sure to be involved, pressuring politicians not to squander what the unions see as a generational job-creating event.
Some applicants still have big issues to resolve. Billionaire Steve Cohen will need to persuade someone in the state Legislature to champion a bill allowing him to build on what is technically parkland next to Citi Field, after Queens state Sen. Jessica Ramos refused to do so in 2024. The Related Cos. and Wynn Resorts must secure city-level zoning changes next year to build their huge Hudson Yards facility, as will Bally’s for its Bronx proposal.
And all 11 known casino teams will need to get past the six-member panels that will hold binding votes on each project; the panels are expected to vote before October 2025. Much of the lobbying firepower will be directed at those Community Advisory Committees, which will be composed of people appointed by local elected officials and which could sink any bid with less than a two-thirds vote.
It will amount to one of New York’s costliest real estate battles in years, pitting top developers against each other for the chance to build neighborhood-reshaping projects.
A new front on housing?
After years of false starts, the city and state took meaningful action on housing in 2024. The City of Yes plan passed in December, promising to boost construction through zoning changes; and state lawmakers approved a budget in April that included the desperately needed 485-x tax break for new developments, as well as a version of “good cause” eviction protections and incentives for office-to-residential conversions.
With those pressing issues settled for now, it’s unclear whether city or state politicians will float any major new ideas in 2025 to chip away at a housing crisis that remains dire. Gov. Kathy Hochul has not given any indication that she plans to revisit the idea of construction mandates, which were defeated by a suburban uprising in 2023 but are seen by some experts as necessary to spur growth around the state.
The Adams administration’s next big housing push looks to be its new Charter Revision Commission, which will spend 2025 gathering ideas for potentially significant changes to the city’s land use rules. And the city will advance a few notable neighborhood rezonings in Midtown South, Jamaica, Long Island City and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn that could collectively enable tens of thousands of new homes. With tentative support from local council members, all four plans could win approval over the course of 2025.
The picture is murkier in Albany, despite a belief among many experts that New York’s regional housing crisis can only be solved through statewide action.
“If you want to be glass-half-empty, it all starts with Albany and how dire the situation in Albany is,” a City Hall official who worked on the City of Yes plan told Crain’s this month. “If Albany’s not going to pick up its part, then how the hell are we going to get Long Island suburbs to start growing?”
An early governor’s race?
Few expected the 2026 gubernatorial election to burst into public view nearly two years in advance. But with Hochul looking vulnerable according to poll numbers, Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres of the Bronx has loudly expressed interest in challenging her for the party’s nomination, and Republican Hudson Valley Congressman Mike Lawler has given every indication he will try to reclaim the governor’s mansion for the GOP.
Republican inroads in New York, made clear in the November general election, only add to the intrigue surrounding the next race for governor. The maneuvering seems likely to continue through 2025.
Hochul has already shown she intends to shore up her defenses, this month announcing a populist proposal to send $3 billion directly to New Yorkers in the form of “inflation refund” checks.
