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    Taraji P. Henson, Keke Palmer and Uzo Aduba Turn Out to Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival

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    Summer on the island is packed with cultural events, and for many celebrities, politicians and filmmakers, the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival is a highlight.“Ready for the Supremes?” the Legendary Chris Washington called out from a D.J. booth inside the packed auditorium at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School on a recent August evening, as he played Motown hits for the crowd.It was one of the biggest nights of the 22nd annual Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival, a nine-day event devoted to celebrating Black filmmakers. The festival held on Martha’s Vineyard, the quaint Massachusetts island, has drawn luminaries like the actress Jennifer Hudson, the director Spike Lee and former President Barack Obama in summers past.Wednesday night’s crowd of about 800 was there for the premiere of “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat,” the director Tina Mabry’s adaptation of the best-selling novel about a trio of lifelong girlfriends who call themselves the Supremes, after the 1960s girl group. Backstage, Uzo Aduba, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Sanaa Lathan, who star in the film, were posing for a row of photographers as they prepared for the debut screening.Ms. Aduba, who grew up in Massachusetts and occasionally visited the island as a child, said it was her first time attending the festival.“To see culture and art and our stories presented in this incredibly placid and elegant and green backdrop, which feels like it weds so many historic vacation moments for Black culture,” she said, “is wonderful.”Panelists at an event for female executives and influential women shared their wisdom.Gabriela Herman for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Martha’s Vineyard Will Have Enough Pot This Summer

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      For the island’s cannabis dispensaries, a sudden change in regulations came just in time.Until recently, Geoff Rose, the proprietor of a cannabis business on Martha’s Vineyard, believed he was in for a bleak summer.That was because his marijuana dispensary, Island Time, had run out of product — and it seemed as if he would be unable to replace it during the busy tourist season on the 96-square-mile Massachusetts island that has long been a haven for vacationers.But on Thursday, state regulators issued an order that would allow cannabis products to be transported across the ocean to licensed businesses.Mr. Rose closed his shop — temporarily, as it turns out — on May 14. At the time, the display cases were empty. No gummies. No tinctures. No pre-rolls. The only item of interest to some of his customers was the chocolate.“I believe there were 14 chocolate bars left,” Mr. Rose said in a phone interview. “They were the last to be sold. More than 14 people came in. Some were disappointed: ‘I don’t want chocolates.’ But some said, ‘OK, I’ll take it.’”The shortage, first reported by The Associated Press, had to do with conflicting laws surrounding the sale and transport of marijuana.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What the Martha’s Vineyard Stunt Says About the Trump Wannabes

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      Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, likes to do stunts. It is a key part of how he’s built his reputation as a fighter for conservative causes — a reputation he hopes to ride to the White House.We saw one of those stunts this week when, using a promise of assistance, he lured several dozen Venezuelan asylum seekers onto a pair of planes in Texas and sent them to Martha’s Vineyard. According to NPR, “The migrants said a woman they identified as ‘Perla’ approached them outside the shelter and lured them into boarding the plane, saying they would be flown to Boston where they could get expedited work papers.”The conceit of this dehumanizing bit of political theater was that the liberal denizens of Martha’s Vineyard would reject the migrants out of hypocrisy, thus proving that Democrats aren’t actually interested in welcoming immigrants into their communities. To DeSantis and his amen corner, asylum seekers are disposable, and they believe that liberals will want to dispose of them too.What happened, instead, was that residents of Martha’s Vineyard rallied to provide food, shelter, clothing and services. The asylum seekers are now on their way to Cape Cod, to receive further assistance. The stunt failed to make its intended point.The same was true of a previous stunt, in which DeSantis touted the arrests of 20 former felons for election fraud. The intended message was that Florida, and presumably the entire country, needed to be on constant alert to block fraudulent voters. But in the days and weeks after the arrests, an investigation by The Tampa Bay Times found that the state had actually cleared those residents to vote. As far as they knew, they hadn’t broken the law. If anything, they had been entrapped as part of a scheme to make DeSantis a more attractive candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.With his command of conservative media and his obvious attempts to mimic the style and mannerisms of Donald Trump (right down to the big suits and frequent hand gestures), DeSantis has made himself into something of an heir apparent to the former president, should Trump decline to run in the next election.But I think these failed stunts tell us something important about DeSantis’s ability to succeed on the national stage.In short, he’s not quite ready.Yes, when viewed from the perspective of partisan media, DeSantis looks almost unstoppable. But to a typical person — someone who may have heard about these stunts but doesn’t know much about DeSantis otherwise — he looks a lot like a bully, someone willing to play high-stakes games with people’s lives for the sake of his own ego and advancement.Well, you might say, Donald Trump is a bully, too. Yes, he is. But Donald Trump is also a lifelong celebrity with a public persona that is as much about “The Apprentice” and even “Home Alone 2” as it is about his political career. What’s more, Trump has the skills of a celebrity. He’s funny, he has stage presence, and he has a kind of natural charisma. He can be a bully in part because he can temper his cruelty and egoism with the performance of a clown or a showman. He can persuade an audience that he’s just kidding — that he doesn’t actually mean it.Ron DeSantis cannot. He may be a more competent Trump in terms of his ability to use the levers of state to amass power, but he’s also meaner and more rigid, without the soft edges and eccentricity of the actual Donald Trump. DeSantis might be able to mimic Trump, in parts, but he does not have the temperament or personality to be another Trump.This doesn’t mean that DeSantis cannot win the Republican presidential nomination or even the presidency; of course he can. What I think it means, however, is that his Trump 2.0 act might fail to reach the marginal voters who liked Donald Trump for his persona and performance more than for his positions or policies. It means that on a national stage, DeSantis might flop like one of his stunts.And looking back at the last decade or so of Republican presidential contests, it would not be the first time that a vaunted conservative fighter fell flat on his face when he finally took a swing at prime time.What I WroteMy Tuesday column was a look at the old idea that political democracy requires a certain amount of economic equality.As a nation, the United States is committed to a creed of free market capitalism. But this belies a heritage of egalitarianism and economic equality in American political thought. Among the oldest and most potent strains of American thinking about democracy is the belief that free government cannot exist in tandem with mass immiseration and gross disparities of wealth and status.My Friday column was a look at the seemingly averted railroad strike that drew a connection to an actual railroad strike that occurred 100 years ago.The fact of the matter is that a decade of corporate cost-cutting, including smaller crews for longer trains, has placed railroad workers under incredible pressure. Not only are they unable to take time for emergencies or sudden illnesses, but they are almost always on call, with just a few hours’ notice before they have to take a shift. For them, the tight schedules and stiff punishments translate to strains on their finances, families and health.Now ReadingJared Clemons on inflation for The Forum.Saurav Sarkar on the Starbucks union drive for Dissent magazine.Makani Themba on the Jackson, Miss., water crisis for The Nation magazine.Clare Malone on the American media’s obsession with the British royal family for The New Yorker.Marissa Martinelli on “Star Trek” for Slate magazine.Feedback If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to your friends. They can sign up here. If you want to share your thoughts on an item in this week’s newsletter or on the newsletter in general, please email me at jamelle-newsletter@nytimes.com. You can follow me on Twitter (@jbouie), Instagram and TikTok.Photo of the WeekJamelle BouieJust something I saw while walking around Charleston, S.C., earlier in the summer.Now Eating: Beer-Marinated Chicken TacosMy son requested chicken tacos with guacamole for dinner this week, so this is what I whipped up. It is very easy and straightforward. If you want to make it a little more demanding, however, let me recommend that you take the time to make your own corn tortillas. It’s not difficult — you don’t even need a tortilla press — and it’s very rewarding. Any store-bought masa harina will work, but I am a fan of the heirloom masa from Masienda. It’s a little expensive but, I think, worth it. Recipe comes from Serious Eats.Ingredients1 cup dark Mexican beer, such as Negra Modelo2 tablespoons dark sesame oil1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic1 teaspoon dried oregano1 teaspoon kosher salt½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper¼ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper6 boneless skinless chicken thighs2 cups of your favorite guacamole8 to 12 taco-size corn tortillasDirectionsMix all ingredients for marinade together in a small bowl. Place chicken thighs in a large bowl and pour in marinade. Cover and place in refrigerator to marinate for at least 2 hours or as long as overnight.Remove chicken from refrigerator while lighting the fire. Light one chimney full of charcoal. When all the charcoal is lit and covered with gray ash, pour out and spread the coals out evenly over the charcoal grate. Grill chicken until fully cooked and browned on both sides, about 4 to 5 minutes per side. Remove from grill and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Cut chicken into thin strips.While chicken is resting, warm tortillas on grill until pliable, about 30 seconds to 1 minute per side. To assemble, spread a heaping spoonful of guacamole from the middle of each tortilla. Pile with chicken slices and serve. More

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      The Political Calculations Behind DeSantis’s Migrant Flights North

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      Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida sent migrants to Massachusetts. He aimed to make a point about President Biden, but immigration issues are nothing new.Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, one-upped his Texas counterpart, Greg Abbott, this week by sending two planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts — the cherry on top of a monthslong campaign to essentially troll liberal cities and states by transferring many asylum seekers to those communities.The airlift, a spokeswoman for DeSantis said in a statement, “was part of the state’s relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations.”She added: “States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden administration’s open border policies.”Of course, there is no such “open border.” Many of these migrants are utilizing U.S. asylum laws that afford them the opportunity for a court hearing to determine whether they qualify to stay in the United States, just as thousands did during the Trump administration and the Obama administration before that. And in most cases, they were apprehended by federal law enforcement agents or turned themselves in, enabling DeSantis to bundle them onto planes in the first place.“Playing politics with people’s lives is what governors like George Wallace did during segregation,” Representative Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said. “Ron DeSantis is trying to earn George Wallace’s legacy.” Moulton was referring to the “reverse freedom rides” of 1962, when segregationists used false promises of jobs and housing to trick Black Southerners into moving north. Moulton, who ran briefly for president in 2020, accused Republicans more generally of using immigration as a “political football.”The deeper issue is this: For decades, Congress has failed to overhaul the country’s immigration laws, which both parties acknowledge are badly out of step with what is happening along the U.S.-Mexico border. They just differ wildly on the proposed remedies.But the political calculations for DeSantis and Abbott are pretty clear. Immigration is a powerful motivating issue for Republican-base voters, nationally and especially in border states like Arizona and Texas.My colleague Astead Herndon discusses this topic in the latest episode of his podcast, The Run-Up. It’s a deep dive on the 10th anniversary of the so-called Republican autopsy of the 2012 election, in which G.O.P. insiders argued for a complete rethinking of their party’s strategy on immigration and Latino voters.As DeSantis surely knows — and by all accounts he’s a canny politician who has his ear attuned to the id of the G.O.P. grass roots — Donald Trump did basically the opposite of what that autopsy recommended. He made frequent and aggressive political use of Latino migrants during his run for the presidency in 2016 and long thereafter, casting many of them as “criminals” and “rapists” during his presidential announcement at Trump Tower.And DeSantis, who seems likely to waltz to re-election in the fall, is busy amassing a formidable war chest for purposes that remain both opaque and obvious. For months, he has been quietly courting Trump donors under the guise of bringing them into his campaign for governor while being careful never to stick his head too far above the parapet — lest Trump try to knock it off his proverbial shoulders.More on Ron DeSantis and His AdministrationReshaping Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has turned the swing state into a right-wing laboratory by leaning into cultural battles.Eyeing 2024: Mr. DeSantis, who appears to be preparing to run for president in 2024, has been signaling his desire to take over former President Donald J. Trump’s political movement. But is that what Republican voters want?Voter Fraud: Mr. DeSantis established one of the nation’s first elections security offices in Florida, dedicated to pursuing election crimes, but many of its first cases seem to be falling apart.Policy and Education: New laws championed by Mr. DeSantis, including the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill, have left Florida teachers feeling fear, uncertainty and confusion.Rick Tyler, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, said the flights to Martha’s Vineyard by DeSantis were “perhaps” smart politics in the context of a Republican primary, but he added, “I find it cynical to be using real human beings as political stunt pawns for positioning in a presidential chess game.”Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, sharply rebuked the Texas and Florida governors for deliberately trying to “create chaos and confusion” in a way that is “disrespectful to humanity.” She said that Fox News was given advance notice while the White House was not.“It is a political stunt,” she said. “That’s what we’re seeing from governors, Republican governors, in particular. It is a cruel, inhumane way of treating people who are fleeing communism, people who are — and we’re not just talking about people, we’re talking about children, we’re talking about families.”A report in The Vineyard Gazette, a local newspaper, recounts how the migrants arrived on the island and were greeted by “a coalition of emergency management officials, faith groups, nonprofit agencies and county and town officials” that organized food and shelter for the new arrivals.A man who was among the migrants sent to Martha’s Vineyard flashed a thumbs-up in Edgartown, Mass.Ray Ewing/Vineyard Gazette, via Associated PressOther Democratic-led enclaves, such as Washington, D.C., and New York City, have petitioned the federal government for help in processing and housing the thousands of migrants that DeSantis and Abbott have theatrically thrust upon them. Last week, Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, declared a state of emergency over the nearly 10,000 migrants who had been bused there from Texas. Eric Adams, her counterpart in New York, said on Wednesday that the city’s shelter system was “nearing its breaking point.”On Thursday morning, two buses dropped off a group of 101 migrants outside the home of Vice President Kamala Harris — a poisoned political chalice sent by Abbott, who tweeted, “We’re sending migrants to her backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.In an indicator of just how potent Republicans believe this issue to be among their voters, even Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, a relative moderate who stood up to Trump over his false stolen election claims in 2020, is now getting in on the game. Ducey, who declined heavy pressure from Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, to run for Senate, is thought to harbor presidential aspirations of his own.The Massachusetts press cast the move by DeSantis as a challenge to Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican whose future plans remain in flux. Baker, a northeastern moderate in the mold of past G.O.P. governors of the Bay State, such as Mitt Romney and Bill Weld, would have little hope in a presidential primary against DeSantis or, for that matter, Trump.The trolling is a novel political tactic. But the general phenomenon of distributing migrants around the country isn’t entirely new, as my colleague Zolan Kanno-Youngs has written. When the Obama administration faced a tide of unaccompanied minors that overwhelmed facilities along the border in places like McAllen, Texas, the Department of Health and Human Services placed thousands of the children in cities across the country.And after the 2011 protest movement in Syria devolved into a vicious civil war, many Republican governors began objecting to having refugees placed in their states.Trump also seized on that issue, calling for a “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” — then sought to enact that policy in one of his first moves as president.Gil Kerlikowske, a former Customs and Border Protection commissioner in the Obama administration, woke up on Thursday morning to find that border politics had followed him to his home on Martha’s Vineyard.Kerlikowske learned that migrants had been dropped off on the island when he went to the barbershop on Thursday morning and overheard people questioning why the United States was unable to secure the southwest border.He reminded the fellow customers that thousands of migrants crossed over the border during the George W. Bush administration as well.“It just kind of shows the ignorance of DeSantis,” Kerlikowske said, advising the governor to pressure members of Florida’s congressional delegation to pass new immigration laws instead. “If he wanted to highlight where the problem is, he should have sent them to Marco Rubio and Rick Scott’s homes.”President Biden has faced pushback from those on his left for, in the view of some advocacy groups, continuing Trump’s immigration policies. On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union criticized Biden after a Reuters report revealed that the administration had been urging Mexico to accept more migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela under a policy put in place during the coronavirus pandemic.Christina Pushaw, a spokeswoman for the DeSantis campaign, said, “The governor has spoken publicly about transporting illegal migrants to sanctuary jurisdictions for months.” She noted that DeSantis had requested $12 million from the Florida Legislature in this year’s state budget for the transfers.“But we in the campaign didn’t know the destination would be Martha’s Vineyard or that it would happen yesterday,” Pushaw said. “We found out from media reports.”Zolan Kanno-Youngs More

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      Where’s Eric Adams? Meeting Donors, From the Hamptons to the Vineyard.

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      Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, is rushing to raise $5 million for the general election in November.On Martha’s Vineyard last weekend, as most residents braced for the possible arrival of Hurricane Henri, a smaller gathering focused on a more certain visitor: Eric Adams, New York City’s likely next mayor.Mr. Adams mingled on Friday with potential donors at a fund-raiser in Oak Bluffs, a historically Black section of the island. A day later, Mr. Adams traveled to the opposite end of the island, for a fund-raiser hosted at the waterfront retreat of Zach Iscol, a businessman who ran for mayor and then comptroller during the June 22 primary election. Caroline Kennedy attended.The weekend before, Mr. Adams was in the Hamptons, donning a bright red blazer with polka dot elbow patches at a fund-raiser hosted by John Catsimatidis, the Republican billionaire, and attending a separate meeting with the venture capitalist Lisa Blau.Mr. Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor, will be an overwhelming favorite in the November general election. His Republican opponent, Curtis Sliwa, faces a steep disadvantage in party registration — Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly seven to one in the city — and an even more pronounced gap in campaign funds.Yet Mr. Adams — who has raised more than $11 million in public and private funds for the primary, and now has about $2 million on hand — has been working overtime on the fund-raising circuit, attending as many as five fund-raisers in one day. His campaign has said he intends by November to raise a fresh $5 million, including public matching funds; Mr. Sliwa, by contrast, has raised only $599,000 since entering the mayor’s race in March, and has about $14,000 on hand.On Mr. Adams’s docket for next month are fund-raisers hosted by the billionaire former mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, reported by Politico, and another hosted by Michael Novogratz, a hedge fund titan-turned-cryptocurrency investor.The fund-raising blitz will enable Mr. Adams to “spend October in full campaign mode,” said Frank Carone, his lawyer and close confidante.Mr. Adams’s trips beyond Brooklyn, Mr. Carone added, allow him to establish a robust fund-raising infrastructure that he can tap into after the general election, to raise money for the transition.A week after being declared the winner of the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, Eric Adams was the star attraction at a Brooklyn fund-raiser in July.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesMr. Adams’s aides would not disclose how much he had raised since winning the primary nor how many fund-raisers he has attended; his campaign disclosure forms are set to be released by the end of the week, via the city’s Campaign Finance Board.“Voters deserve to hear Eric’s plans for the city, and the working people he represents deserve to have a voice in this election — and that’s why Eric’s campaign is raising the resources necessary to get his message out,” said Evan Thies, Mr. Adams’s spokesman.In his years in elected office, Mr. Adams’s fund-raising has, at times, tested the boundaries of campaign-finance and ethics laws. Mr. Adams was investigated as a state senator for his role in awarding a video lottery machine contract at Aqueduct Racetrack after, among other things, soliciting donations from people affiliated with the bidders. He has also been criticized for taking money as Brooklyn borough president from developers who were lobbying him for crucial zoning changes.Good government groups have said they will be watching closely to make sure that Mr. Adams steers clear of conflicts of interest; his summer of fund-raising may offer opportunity for dissection.“He will be under intense scrutiny, and I’m sure his campaign is aware of that,” said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany.Mr. Adams will, arguably, never be more attractive to donors than now; he is the de facto mayor-in-waiting for a city of 8.8 million who has yet to alienate powerful interests by making difficult mayoral decisions.The Martha’s Vineyard fund-raiser in Oak Bluffs featured a largely Black “cross-section of distinguished leaders, achievers, and I won’t say elite, but certainly upper-class folks,” said one attendee, the Rev. Jacques Andre DeGraff, an associate pastor at Harlem’s Canaan Baptist Church of Christ.Hasoni Pratts, one of the hosts of the gathering at Mr. Iscol’s house and the national director of engagement for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, said it was not difficult to find donors for Mr. Adams.“They like his message and his background as a self-made person and a public servant,” she said.In August, Mr. Adams traipsed out to the Hamptons. There was a speech at the Hamptons Synagogue, followed by a fund-raiser at the Westhampton Beach home of Jerry W. Levin, a businessman and Republican donor who has given more than $17,000 to Representative Lee Zeldin and his PAC. Mr. Levin posed for a photo with Mr. Adams at the event promoting his Waterloo Sparkling Water brand, holding a grape-flavored can.Jerry Levin, a Republican donor, hosted a fund-raiser in Westhampton Beach, N.Y., for Mr. Adams, saying he thought Mr. Adams was the “right person for the position.”Dan’s PapersMr. Levin declined to say how much he had contributed to Mr. Adams.“I’m a conservative Republican, and I remain a conservative Republican,” he said. “I think Eric is the right person for the position. Realistically, I can’t see how a Republican could win.”Another fund-raiser in Water Mill was organized by Mr. Catsimatidis, and attended by Rudy Washington, a deputy mayor in the 1990s under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Ms. Blau — the venture capitalist married to Jeff T. Blau, chief executive of the real estate company that developed Hudson Yards — invited friends to her home to hear Mr. Adams speak, for what was billed as a conversation, not a fund-raiser. During the primary, Ms. Blau backed an effort to get more Republicans to register as Democrats.One Hamptons donor, Jean Shafiroff, said she was impressed by Mr. Adams’s focus on tackling crime, as well as by his colorful ensemble.“I thought it was cheerful looking,” she said. “He was saying it’s OK to get a little dressed up and support fashion.”Ms. Shafiroff, the wife of a banker who is known as the “first lady of philanthropy,” donated $1,000 at the event.A fund-raiser in July at the Queens home of the developer Carl F. Mattone was co-hosted by Eric Ulrich, a Republican councilman, along with the lobbyist Williams Driscoll and Gerry Caliendo, a Queens architect. Another event is planned for Sept. 8 at South Street Seaport by Bo Dietl, a former Republican and mayoral candidate who also hosted a fund-raiser for Mr. Adams at Smith & Wollensky earlier this year.Mr. Adams, a former police captain, has positioned himself as a centrist, someone willing to work with Democrats and Republicans alike. After the primary, Mr. Adams was photographed dining with Mr. Dietl and Mr. Catsimatidis at Rao’s in East Harlem.“I am pro common-sense Democrats,” Mr. Catsimatidis said in an interview. “We had a lot of common-sense Democrats that loved what Eric Adams said during the get-together, and a lot of Republicans that loved what he said.”On Sept. 30, Mr. Novogratz, a Democrat, will host a high-dollar fund-raiser for Mr. Adams at an undisclosed location in Manhattan. Greenberg Traurig, the international law firm that lobbies city government for Fordham University, AT&T and various real estate firms, is hosting one on Sept. 9 at their Manhattan office, where designated hosts must contribute $2,000. To be listed as a “friend” will cost $1,000; regular guests will pay $400. Bolton-St. Johns, a prominent firm that lobbies city government for Airbnb and DoorDash, is also planning a fund-raiser in September.The fund-raising event in Brooklyn also drew Letitia James, the state attorney general, center, with Mr. Adams.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesOther fund-raiser hosts have included the prominent real estate lobbyist Suri Kasirer, who held an event for Mr. Adams at her home on Aug. 14; and several partners from the Manhattan law firm Cozen O’Connor, which represents clients with business before the city. The law partners hosted an Aug. 10 fund-raiser on the 17th-floor sky terrace at 3 World Trade Center.Ofer Cohen, who runs a Brooklyn commercial real estate firm, is planning a fund-raiser for Mr. Adams as well. Mr. Cohen is still trying to nail down a date that works, amid the back-to-school rush and the Jewish High Holy Days. He considers his Brooklyn fund-raising crowd “the O.G.s.”“The business community and the real estate community here always liked Eric,” Mr. Cohen said. “The difference is now, it’s all over the city. It’s all business sectors.”Some Democrats pledged during the mayoral primary not to accept money from real estate developers, but Mr. Adams said he would take campaign contributions from all New Yorkers and that they would not influence his decisions as mayor. During the primary, Mr. Adams also received indirect financial support from a well-funded super PAC run by Jenny Sedlis, who was on leave from a charter school advocacy group. Mr. Sliwa, on the other hand, has struggled to raise money. He has not qualified for public matching funds yet, but his campaign believes it will soon. Republicans like Mr. Catsimatidis, who said Mr. Sliwa was “like a brother” to him, may want to hedge their bets by supporting Mr. Adams and Mr. Sliwa.Mr. Adams’s ease in drawing interest from donors — for himself and his party — began immediately after he emerged as the Democratic primary victor. One week later, he appeared as the headliner at a waterfront fund-raiser for the Brooklyn Democratic Party, where top tickets went for $50,000. The July 14 event was the first in-person gathering for many donors since the pandemic began, and it was packed with lobbyists and elected officials: Mayor Bill de Blasio; Letitia James, the state attorney general; and several members of Congress.At the restaurant Giando on the Water, where guests enjoyed sweeping views of the East River and the Williamsburg Bridge, Mr. Adams appeared onstage like a rock star. He declared, “I am the mayor,” and urged the audience to donate to his friends at the Brooklyn Democratic Party.“I’m hoping the people at the door will not allow anybody in here without writing a check,” he told the crowd. More