(TNND) — A democratic socialist still appears close to taking the reins of the biggest city in the country after incumbent Eric Adams dropped out of the race for mayor, even if Adams' departure might help Zohran Mamdani's main opponent more.

Mamdani, the 33-year-old state lawmaker and democratic socialist, still faces former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Jake Neiheisel, a political scientist at the University at Buffalo in New York, said Cuomo is in a position to consolidate a lot of the non-Mamdani support. Cuomo and Adams are more ideologically aligned as centrist Democrats.

But Neiheisel said Mamdani remains the favorite.

“I don't know that he's a shoo-in, but I think he'd be the smart money at this point,” Neiheisel said of Mamdani’s path to victory on Nov. 4.

Recent polling showed Adams trailing the other three candidates before his decision to leave the race.

A New York Times/Siena University poll from early September had Mamdani leading with 46% of the vote, followed by Cuomo at 24%, Sliwa at 15%, and finally Adams at 9%.

Other polls, such as those from Quinnipiac and Suffolk universities, showed similar results.

“Although this is the end of my reelection campaign, it is not the end of my public service,” Adams said in a video posted to social media Sunday. “I will continue to fight for this city as I have for 40 years, since the day I joined the NYPD to make our streets safer and our systems fairer."

Mamdani downplayed the impact of Adams’ departure on the race.

"I think it's very much the same race," Mamdani told Democracy Now, adding that Cuomo has been seeking “a one-on-one fight with me.”

But Mamdani expressed confidence in beating Cuomo in the general election after he beat Cuomo in the Democratic primary, forcing Cuomo to mount an independent run to stay in the race.

Cuomo said in a social media post that he believed Adams was “sincere in putting the well-being of New York City ahead of personal ambition” while making the decision to leave the race.

“We face destructive extremist forces that would devastate our city through incompetence or ignorance, but it is not too late to stop them,” Cuomo added.

Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, touted himself as the “only candidate who can defeat Mamdani.”

Neiheisel said “something of a perfect storm” brought Mamdani to the front-runner position against more well-known candidates with perhaps more mainstream policy positions.

Mamdani was largely unknown months before his primary victory earlier this year.

Mamdani campaigned on cost-of-living issues and has advocated for free public buses, city-owned grocery stores, no-cost childcare, and freezing rent increases.

Republicans have tried to paint Mamdani as the radical face of Democrats.

But both Adams and Cuomo carried considerable baggage in the race.

Cuomo resigned as governor in 2021 amid a sexual harassment scandal.

Adams, who ran as an independent rather than a Democrat, faced a corruption case before a judge dismissed it earlier this year.

“I think it was something of a stealth campaign,” Neiheisel said of Mamdani. “You didn't hear a ton about him prior to the primary. And look, he was going up against two very, very flawed candidates. And so, I think a lot of people, particularly in the circumstances of a primary, will say, ‘You know, gee, like, I'm not sure I know a lot about this person, but I know a ton about these other two, and I don't particularly care for them.’ So, I do think it was something of a perfect storm.”

Neiheisel said there is a genuine groundswell of support for Mamdani, but he said Mamdani also benefited from Democratic voters casting about for an alternative to Adams or Cuomo.

As for Sliwa, Neiheisel just doesn’t think a Republican can win in New York City.

Neiheisel said that most of the city’s voters fall somewhere between the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, where Adams and Cuomo reside, and the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which would include Mamdani.

“And they can very easily be convinced to fill or occupy either one of those spaces depending on what's going on,” he said.

Adams pitched himself as a law-and-order Democrat, which won over voters four years ago.

But is ideology or character the more powerful motivator for voters?

“That is absolutely the key question,” Neiheisel said. “And the short answer is, I don't know. I think we've seen lately ideology becoming a more powerful predictor of people's votes than other kinds of qualities about candidates.”

And what does it mean for the rest of the country if a democratic socialist wins in New York City?

“Not much,” Neiheisel said.

This isn’t likely to be a sea change for the socialist movement within the Democratic Party.

“I think context still matters,” Neiheisel said. “And I think that New York City is a very different kind of place than a lot of other places across the country.”

Neiheisel said he sees more socialist undercurrents within the Democratic Party than he’s seen in the past, but he believes the party’s leadership is still closer to the middle.

That might change if the activist class within the party keeps tugging the party further left, he said.

“But you're talking New York City,” Neiheisel said. “You're not talking about heartland America.”

President Donald Trump has called Mamdani a “communist” and a “disaster.”

And a Mamdani victory could spell a rough patch for the city’s relations with the federal government. Neiheisel said the Trump administration could look for reasons to withhold federal funds from a Mamdani-led city, for example.

“I don't know that merely the fact that he wins is going to trigger that. I could be very wrong about that. But I think the first excuse that they get, the first thing that looks like a violation of law and order that happens in New York City on Mamdani's watch, I think that the Trump administration will be all too eager to do whatever they can to undermine (the Mamdani administration),” Neiheisel said.