How The Buffalo Mayoral Race Is Shaping Up

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. It is one week till Election Day and there is a very interesting mayoral election taking place in New York right now. One that has national implications for democracy, equality and the Democratic Party in America. The thing is, this very interesting New York mayoral race is in Buffalo, not New York City, where the election is unlikely to be close. For those of you who don't know this story, back in June a nurse, an activist and democratic socialist Bernie Sanders supporter in the presidential races, India Walton won the Democratic mayoral primary and buffalo over the 16 year incumbent mayor Byron Brown.

That was interesting enough. Walton would be the first democratic socialist mayor of a major American city in decades, and she was expected at first to cruise to victory in the general election because, well, Republicans are not competitive in Buffalo. What has happened since is the real story. Mayor Brown decided he would not accept the results of the Democratic primary and leave office. He is waging a rating campaign for the voting that is now underway, early voting began on Saturday. Even more shocking, many of New York's top Democrats have refused to endorse the Democratic nominee Miss Walton.

That list includes Governor Hochul, her newly appointed Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin, Attorney General Letitia James, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, and infamously the state Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs, who said the party would be under no obligation to support its nominee if KKK leader David Duke won a primary so it's under no obligation for India Walton. Nice comparison, right? Between David Duke and a working class Black woman running on an equality platform. In just a minute we'll talk to Buffalo News political reporter Bob McCarthy. First here's a clip of India Walton on this show back in July after she won the primary on centering poor people if she's elected, because the rich will be okay.

India Walton: I look forward to saying the rich people will be fine. We've given a billion dollars in tax incentives to Elon Musk for an empty Tesla factory in Buffalo. That is the legacy that I am going to actively undo and my pledge to my people is that I'm going to put poor people at the center of our policymaking and also give them decision making power by co governing and respecting the wishes of the people that actually are living this in real time that I have the problem. I'm really excited.

Brian Lehrer: India Walton here on July 6th, we'll hear more clips as we go. With us now, Buffalo News political reporter Bob McCarthy, Bob thanks for joining us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Bob McCarthy: Always good to be with you, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: For people who don't know anything about Buffalo, except maybe that the bills are in first place, who is India Walton and how did she win the Democratic primary?

Bob McCarthy: Well, that's a really good question, because not a lot of people had heard of India Walton before late last year. I think I got a tip one day saying that this activist woman was planning to challenge the mayor in a primary and called her up and, "I'm going to do that." We'd known a little bit about her because she had been present at many of the anti police demonstrations that cropped up in Buffalo, as they did across the country, last summer following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. We knew a little bit about her. She was present for. lot of those events.

Brian Lehrer: Just to be thorough, you say anti police, she would probably say anti police brutality, right?

Bob McCarthy: Yes, that's what I mean for sure. She popped up at many of those demonstrations, bullhorn in hand, and that's probably the first we knew about her. She did emerge also as the director of a Land Trust that in the Fruit Belt area, which was threatened with gentrification as the burgeoning medical campus here was seeping into that neighborhood. She was beginning to make a name for herself but I would say that 99% of the people in Buffalo did not know her and that has changed markedly since she won the Democratic primary in June.

Brian Lehrer: Well, over the weekend, Senators Gillibrand and Schumer finally endorsed Walton. Am I up to date on the rest of this list? Governor Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Letitia James, comptroller Tom DiNapoli and Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin all have not endorsed their party's nominee for mayor of Buffalo.

Bob McCarthy: Governor Kathy Hochul I know has not and I'm not sure about the others. I'm not sure, to tell you the truth.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Why would Hochul or anybody in those positions even be hesitant? Why would it have taken Schumer and Gillibrand this long and only under pressure from progressives in their party? Why isn't it a fait accompli or just a no brainer, an obvious thing, a matter of routine, that Democratic Party leadership endorses the Democratic nominee?

Bob McCarthy: Well, that is the heart of what we're dealing with here, that not everybody in the Democratic Party is ready to sign on to this. We have a op ed piece in our paper today written by Congressman Tom Swasey, who has actually been up here campaigning for Mayor Brown, who says that the party should not be latching itself on to a socialist agenda. Jay Jacobs, the chairman of the state Democratic committee, has also expressed the same sentiment, that he is not ready to back for socialist for mayor of Buffalo. Others, such as the Erie County Democratic Party, others, such as senators, Schumer and Gillibrand have said, "We recognize and respect the decision of the primary voters in June and we will therefore climb on board the Walton campaign."

As far as the governor, we asked, and she just says, "I'm not going to go there."

Brian Lehrer: The Jay Jacobs remark, I have the audio but I'm not going to play it because it's so offensive. I'll just quote it. Remember, his job his New York state Democratic Party chairman, He said, quote, "Let's take a scenario, very different, where David Duke, you remember him? The Grand Wizard of the KKK. He moves to New York, he becomes a Democrat. He runs for mayor in the city of Rochester, which is a low primary turnout, and he wins the democratic line. I have to endorse David Duke? I don't think so." Unquote, from state Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs. To be fair, he said David Duke would be very different scenario but why does he see David Duke and India Walton as similarly objectionable enough, that that was the analogy he used?

Bob McCarthy: Well, I don't know what was going through the chairman's mind on that, I won't speak for him. All I know is that that did spark a firestorm of protest around the state, including from Governor Hochul who condemned the remark. What made him say such a thing, I don't know.

Brian Lehrer: 'I condemn the remark but I won't endorse the Democratic nominee." She has doubts about whether the nominee is to outside the bounds of what the governor considers politically acceptable, I guess. When they say socialist, when Tom Swasey, for example, centrist Democratic member of Congress from Queens and Nassau County, says he doesn't want to endorse a socialist agenda. You mentioned police rallies, or anti police brutality rallies, Hold those aside for a minute. When they talk about not being ready to endorse a socialist agenda, what does that mean to them in terms of economics?

Bob McCarthy: What is her agenda, is that what you're asking me?

Brian Lehrer: No, what are they afraid of, those Democrats who won't endorse India Walton? What are they saying?

Bob McCarthy: Well, there are a lot of things in her platform, which calls for, community land trust that she was involved in, for using vacant public land for the public good. She proposes a $7.5 million reduction in the police department budget, which the mayor has claimed will result in the firing of 100 police officers right off the bat. You're talking about a force of about 750 people. She does not say that any of those people will be fired. India Walton says that she will achieve those savings through attrition. She also sees the need for vast reforms in policing here in the city, such as domestic disputes.

"Maybe they should be handled by mental health counselors," she says. Maybe that's not the kind of thing that police officers should be responding to, and maybe some of the people who will eventually not be working for the police department might be working in mental health capacities. The mayor will say that his police department has made many of these accommodations, especially since George Floyd's death. Those are the kinds of things that are beginning to cause some concern among some people, like Tom Suozzi, among the other people who have not jumped up aboard her candidacy.

Brian Lehrer: I guess Tom Suozzi must think that people in Queens and Nassau County care who he endorses for mayor of Buffalo and that it not be a Democratic Socialist.

Bob McCarthy: Let's remember that Tom Suozzi is often mentioned as a candidate for governor. That maybe he has something in mind about that, and maybe he is beginning to reinforce some of the connections that he made in this city 15 years ago when he challenged Eliot Spitzer in the Democratic primary for governor. Maybe he's outlining some kind of a centrist position himself among potential candidates for governor. Just thinking, who knows?

Brian Lehrer: That's interesting thinking. Doesn't necessarily explain Letitia James, who may well run for governor and presumably would be to the left of Tom Suozzi. Is also an African-American woman and a progressive, ran herself for the first time that she got elected to office outside the Democratic Party on the Working Families Party line in Brooklyn a number of years ago. At least as of four days ago, which is the last press reference I can find, Letitia James has not endorsed India Walton. Listeners, I want to open the phones. If you're listening in Buffalo right now or are from Buffalo, call in and help the rest of us learn about this race and the context for your city and nationally as you see it.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Others may call too. If you've been following the Buffalo mayoral campaign or have a question about it for Buffalo News political reporter Bob McCarthy, 212-433- Did I even give out the right number before? We changed back yesterday. Listeners take note, don't necessarily put it on your speed dial because we want a lot of different people all on different days, but we changed back as of yesterday to our usual call in number that we had to suspend for a while for technical reasons during the pandemic. We are back to 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Anybody with a thought or a question about the Buffalo mayoral race, you are welcome to call in now or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Bob, you cover Buffalo politics, not necessarily other things around the state. To your knowledge, if you've looked at it, how often, if ever, has this happened before, that the Democratic Party leadership in New York, including many of the top elected officials like governor and attorney general, declined to back the nominee for any major office?

Bob McCarthy: Very seldom, Brian. I can tell you that it did happen one time in the 1960s in a mayoral situation regarding Mayor Frank Sedita, who was a legendary mayor way before my time, but it did happen where the Democratic leadership did not honor the wishes of the Democratic voters in a primary. That's a very rare occurrence. In this instance, the Erie County Democratic Party had been backing Mayor Brown for reelection. He won their endorsement before the primary but immediately after the primary, the next day, Chairman Jeremy Zellner said, "I must respect the wishes of the Democratic Party voters here." Even though it was a very, very small percentage of not only the party but the whole electorate of the city.

He said, "No, this is it. The primary voters have spoken. She's the nominee of the Democratic Party, and that's where the Erie County Democratic Committee will be." It is a very rare situation, I think, where even this kind of a thing happens. Remember, Byron Brown is the immediate past chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee. This thing has a lot of implications for Democrats around the state.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to take a break. We're going to come back and play a clip of India Walton on this show reacting to the notion that Byron Brown, rather than accept defeat in the Democratic primary, would run a write-in campaign against her. We have a lot of people connected to Buffalo and not calling in. We'll also play a clip or two of Byron Brown, who is this 16-year mayor of Buffalo, and why, from his perspective, would he run this maverick write-in campaign after being part of the establishment for so long. Just heard he was chair of the State Democratic Committee himself. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we're talking about very important with national implications race for mayor of Buffalo after Democratic Socialist India Walton won the Democratic mayoral primary back in June, and the incumbent Democratic mayor Byron Brown would not accept the results and is running a write-in campaign to try to defeat her in the election that is now underway and, of course, culminates next Tuesday, Election Day. Our guest is Bob McCarthy, political reporter for The Buffalo News. Here's another clip of India Walton on this show in July, just after Mayor Brown announced he would launch that write-in campaign after losing the primary.

India Walton: I'm not surprised. I know the current mayor and I'm not really shocked. I think that it's more disrespectful to the voters because during the primary election, he really didn't campaign. He refused to debate me. Buffalo is the third poorest city of its size in the nation and, frankly, he's had 16 years to do something. Nothing has been done. I think that is the message that is resonating with the voters. It's time for something new and something better and bold and visionary ideas. That's just it. He's got a record, and it's not too great, and everyone knows it.

Brian Lehrer: That's part of Walton's take on Brown's record speaking here in July. Here's part of Brown's defense in a televised debate they held last month.

Byron Brown: We cut taxes by 16%. We created over 2,200 units of new affordable housing. We expanded youth employment and youth job opportunities and hired the most diverse workforce in the history of the city of Buffalo.

Brian Lehrer: Byron Brown from the debate with India Walton. Bob McCarthy, veteran political reporter for The Buffalo News, is our guest. How would you begin to describe Mayor Brown's record? I see your latest article includes in the headline, "Some wonder if Byron Brown's shelf life has expired." What did you mean by that and how would you begin to communicate to people around the country watching this race for its national implications what his record was?

Bob McCarthy: I think that right there is the mayor's most glaring problem, the fact that he has been the mayor for four terms. Only Jim Griffin also won four terms. Nobody else has ever served five terms. That's one of the problems, and it's one of the things that's an old political axiom, as you know, that especially among executive positions like Mayor, that you have a shelf life. That your expiration date expires, and that voters need to look for somebody else, and they seek somebody else. That's a major part of what's going on here. He will talk about all of those things that you just played, all of the accomplishments that he believes has happened under his administration.

There have been some good things going on here. The city has noted its first increase in population since the 1950 census, and that's huge. There's a lot there going on downtown, and a lot of development that have made it very attractive city these days. India Walton will say that, "We've had some progress, but he hasn't done enough. He hasn't looked at the areas of the city that are indeed very poor." It is the third poorest city in America and that's still a problem. What she is trying to do is to get a reallocation of resources to the neighborhoods.

Which is, I think, a perennial type of a debate that goes on in mayoral elections, at least in this city, about whether or not there has been enough attention paid in some of these four areas and in programs that might lift up people to contribute to the economy in that way. She has been mostly critical of the mayor for his working closely with developers and allowing them to call a lot of the shots is the way she puts it. That's in a nutshell. You mentioned that debate. She looked at him at one point in the debate and said, "I don't even know what you're doing here" because he was not on the ballot, and the only way that he is going to get there is by writing in and there's all kinds of difficulties associated with that.

Brian Lehrer: Daniel and Buffalo you're on WNYC. Hi Daniel, thanks for calling in.

Daniel: Thank you for doing this program. I've been a supporter of India Walton. I voted for her in the primary. I didn't expect her to win. I don't know anybody who expected her to win, but I was so impressed that she did. I voted for her because I heard her messages at rallies during the Black Lives Matter movement last year and people who knew her said good things about her. Byron Brown administration, in my opinion, is very corrupt and the Buffalo News, who your guest Bob McCarthy works for, hedges on the corruption aspect of the Brown administration.

They've written articles about the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency and campaign contributions, and Carl Paladino given development rights, and every few years, the Buffalo News does a good article about the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, but nothing comes of these things. Everybody knows that every politician will say campaign contributions don't mean anything to the work that I do and that there is no quid pro quo. Of course, unless the politician is really, really stupid, it's very difficult to prove any quid pro quo, but there is out-and-out corruption that the Buffalo News doesn't write about. I've written to at least two reporters at the Buffalo News.

Brian Lehrer: Daniel, I'm going to leave it there and get a reaction from Bob McCarthy from the Buffalo News. You put a lot on the table. Very interesting stuff. Bob, on his basic charge that there is corruption on the part of Mayor Byron Brown, what has been documented, if anything, about that?

Bob McCarthy: I'm very glad that Daniel reads The News and you could tell he follows us closely, but not closely enough because my goodness, I broke the story that a federal grand jury was looking at some municipal contracts that had been awarded. I've written about the raids that the FBI has conducted right in city hall. Going into municipal offices and coming out with cartloads of files and boxes of documents. I've written about the guilty plea of the consulting firm of the former deputy mayor. I've written about the mayor's close association with former Erie County Democratic Chairman Steve Pigeon, who would now awaits sentencing on federal bribery charges.

The News has been there for all of this and documented all of this. We've also written that after all of this, the US attorney's office has never done anything. You can't dispute that fact. When we had a profile about the mayor in Sunday's paper, it outlined all of that situation and the mayor comes back and says, "Yes, but nothing has happened." You can't dispute that. What I would say is there's all kinds of question marks. Daniel is correct in saying that all of these things had happened, but I would not accept that The News has not been there to document all of this.

Brian Lehrer: The caller mentioned Carl Paladino who some people will remember as a one-time Republican gubernatorial candidate. He came up when India Walton was on the show. You'll hear my characterization of him in this little clip when India Walton was talking about some of the people who are for Byron Brown. You can fact check this for us, Bob, and tell us if this is true. India Walton on the show back in July.

India Walton: He has the support of the Michael Bloombergs of the world and Carl Paladino who's a local developer, former school board member that was disgraced and removed from the school board after making disparaging remarks about first lady Michelle Obama and sending racist and sexist emails around.

Brian Lehrer: He ran for governor, right? Carl Paladino ran for governor from Buffalo. He's like the low rent Donald Trump before Donald Trump.

India Walton: [laughs] The low rent Donald Trump. He has vowed publicly to destroy me and that's what I'm up against here.

Brian Lehrer: Is that what she's up against? First of all, is Michael Bloomberg supporting Byron Brown and Carl Paladino, without going into the sorrier aspects of his history? He's a conservative Republican. Is Byron Brown taking support from him?

Bob McCarthy: I'm not aware of Mayor Bloomberg offering his support to Mayor Brown. It could be. I don't know. I think what India Walton is saying about Carl Paladino is embodied in the story that we have on our front page today that the New York State Republican Committee is sponsoring mailers for Byron Brown, lifelong Democrat and former chairman of the New York state Democratic committee. This doesn't make a lot of sense, but mailers have been arriving in mailboxes here over the past few days paid for by the state GOP and when we asked Chairman Nick Langworthy about it yesterday, he issued a statement saying that we will attack socialism on all levels. He wouldn't talk about it, but that was the rationale for this.

The Walton campaign has also done an extensive analysis of contributions that have come to the Brown campaign since the primary and about one-third of them come from people who have supported Republican candidates in the past. What they're trying to do is to make that connection and the mayor responds with, "I will accept support from anyone who would like to vote for me." Remember the Republican Party in Buffalo is-

Brian Lehrer: I guess that would include David Duke, to go to Jay Jacobs analogy?

Bob McCarthy: I don't know about that, but what I will say is that the Republicans in the City of Buffalo are outnumbered seven to one. They didn't even see all the candidates and that's why they're kicking themselves and why they now have to support Democrat Byron Brown.

Brian Lehrer: He's welcoming Carl Paladino support at very least, it sounds like.

Bob McCarthy: No, that's not true. That's not true.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Bob McCarthy: The mayor has not accepted Carl Paladino's support and, as a matter of fact, rejected it.

Brian Lehrer: There's Carl Paladino money in his campaign. Is that what you're saying?

Bob McCarthy: I'm not aware of that. I don't know. I'd have to check that.

Brian Lehrer: John in Queen's, you're on WNYC. Hi, John?

John: Is that me?

Brian Lehrer: You.

John: In Queens?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

John: Hi, I have a very straight question. Has Ocasio-Cortez supported the presumptive running for mayor, Miss Walton in Buffalo? Obvious question.

Brian Lehrer: I would have to look that up, but I think the obvious answer is I'm sure she has. Do you know specifically, Bob?

Bob McCarthy: I do. As a matter of fact, she came here Saturday to lead a rally, that was jam-packed in a theater downtown, urging that India Walton be elected mayor. It was a very huge accomplishment on her part, I think, to get this leading voice of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to come here and urge her election. Yes, she most certainly is very much behind India Walton.

Brian Lehrer: She's certainly a very potentially close analogy. She was pretty much unknown a year before her defeat in a Democratic primary of an establishment Democrat, Congressman Crowley, who had been in the leadership in the Democratic Party in Congress from that district in Queens and the Bronx. AOC ran on her Democratic Socialist agenda within the Democratic Party and saying that Crowley had fallen out of touch. I did not see Joe Crowley run a write-in campaign after Ocasio-Cortez won the nomination. I did not see Democratic Party leaders refuse to support the Democratic nominee after she won that race.

There are analogies to AOC, and there's some others too, as you know. Some downstate politicians who are Democrats and also call themselves DSA members, Democratic Socialists of America. They haven't faced this kind of backlash within the party that India Walton is facing. Let me ask you this, both candidates are Black, though one is a man and one is a woman, how much are race or gender factors in these campaigns, explicitly or otherwise, as far as you can report?

Bob McCarthy: That's a very interesting question, because when Byron Brown ran for mayor the first time 16 years ago, he did it with the possibility of becoming the city's first Black mayor, which he did. Since then, I don't really see race as being any kind of a factor in this situation. I did a story about the Delaware district in the city, which is the most affluent and used to be referred to as the silk stocking council district in the city. It was very much split, I think, between the two candidates. The point is that Delaware had, especially in recent years, a very white district head camp to support Mayor Brown with pretty healthy results during the last elections.

I just have not seen race become an issue in this in any way. Even in other mostly white districts, I would say that it just hasn't raised itself as an issue.

Brian Lehrer: Last question, do you think-- I did ask about gender also, is India Walton running on this at all? I hadn't been following the race closely, but I could imagine her saying not everybody who's Black really supports the policies that are going to most benefit Black people. Then there's the question of gender.

Bob McCarthy: India Walton would be the first woman to be mayor of Buffalo. There are many women who are excited about that. I think only in that aspect has it become an issue. I have not heard anybody disparaging her, or I haven't heard the mayor disparaging her as a woman candidate or anything like that. I will tell you that, yes, there's a lot of women in the city who think that's pretty cool. They would like to see a woman occupy that big office on the second floor of City Hall.

Brian Lehrer: Right. As far as you know Walton isn't calling out what she might see as implicit bias against her as a woman, anything like that? Not a factor in the campaign?

Bob McCarthy: Not anything major that’s really jumped into the headlines, no.

Brian Lehrer: Last question, do you think this race has national implications?

Bob McCarthy: Yes, I do, Brian. First of all, it's gotten very focused attention from many newspapers and TV and radio from around the country and even outside the country. It's the possibility of a Socialist mayor being elected for the first time in American city of consequence, since Milwaukee in the late 1950s. This is important stuff. As I wrote in a story that we had on Sunday, that is a battle for Buffalo’s political soul. It will tell us whether or not it is the old Buffalo Democratic city made up of ethnic conservative Democrats who maybe really didn't follow that kind of thing, or whether it will be an AOC situation where the city has changed, and where now there are younger people and immigrants who are more interested in the Democratic politics offered by India Walton.

When these results become apparent next week, it's going to tell us a lot about the city and it's going to maybe tell us a lot about where the Democratic Party is in a place like Buffalo.

Brian Lehrer: I think that's right. By the way, just for clarity, we've been clarifying this since June when India Walton and the Buffalo mayor's race broke into the headlines. People always say she would be the first Democratic socialist mayor of a major American city in decades. Then listeners pop up and they say, "Wait, Bernie Sanders." By the way, these things are usually measured and reported. Burlington is small enough that it's not considered a major American city. That's why that language is used. Yes, obviously Bernie Sanders was mayor of an American city, a state capital in fact [this was corrected later in the show: Montpelier is the capital of Vermont]. We’ve had Bob McCarthy, political reporter for the Buffalo News. Bob, Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

Bob McCarthy: You're welcome. Good to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come.

 

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