This seems to be Buffalo’s turn in the spotlight. The long-withering Western New York City is the hometown of the state’s new governor, Kathy Hochul, and its football Bills have emerged as an NFL powerhouse. At least as important as either, however, is its looming November mayoral election, which will pit an avowed Democratic-Socialist, India Walton, against long-time incumbent Byron Brown, who, having narrowly lost a low-turnout primary, has chosen to buck the Democratic Party and wage a write-in campaign to retain his office.
As an election that will pit an AOC-style Democrat against a traditional liberal, it will have implications for the party nationwide. But the write-in effort is important in its own right — and holds a lesson for New York City’s method of choosing its own mayor.
It’s tempting to see the Buffalo race only in terms of the national narrative in which Squad-style progressives are battling for the “soul” of the Demoratic Party against a more moderate “establishment.” And, to be sure, it’s all of that. Although long-time community organizer Walton disavows any effort to “abolish capitalism,” she does say that “we have a system that’s been set up to keep certain groups of people impoverished, while other folks, you know, make record profits off of the labor of others.”
