The general election campaign for New York City mayor opened in earnest this week with fingerprint-free accounts of what sounded like an unlikely but not entirely impossible scenario.

Two months out, with Democratic nominee Assemb. Zohran Mamdani leading in polls as expected, scandal-scarred Mayor Eric Adams would accept an offer of a federal post from President Donald Trump. The president famously got Adams off the hook on felony charges earlier this year by getting his newly politicized Justice Department to drop a pending felony corruption case against the mayor in exchange for help with ICE operations.

But there’s more. With Adams out of the race, Trump would supposedly try to lure Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa out of campaigning to "clear the field" so that ex-Gov. Andrew M. Cuo

See Full Page