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.”
Brown, the four-term incumbent, fires back: “She’s talked about defunding the police department at a time when crime is going up in communities all across the country including here. Her brand of socialism is that, ‘I’m going to raise your taxes before even looking or understanding the city budget.'”
But Brown is not just challenging the views of party progressives, he’s effectively arguing that Buffalo — like New York City — goes about choosing its mayor through an overly narrow electoral process. That’s certainly the lesson that can be drawn from the Democratic primary won by Walton — who triumphed over Brown in the June 22 primary with just over 11,000 votes in a city with 155,00 registered voters — including more than 42,000 Republicans and independents who have no voice in a Democratic primary.
The combination of low turnout among the city’s 106,000 registered Democrats and the partisan nature of the election held on a nontraditional date in late June narrowed the electorate in a way Brown (who received just more than 10,000 votes) clearly believes disadvantaged him.
In now running against the nominee of his own party, Brown is joining Andrew Yang in arguing that a partisan primary is not the best way to reflect the views of the overall city electorate. Yang and his new Forward Party explicitly call for expanding the number of voters eligible to vote in party primaries such as New York City’s — which de facto decide the final result. His party, he writes, is “supporting ballot initiatives and campaigns that lead to open primaries.”
That, of course, is not the only path toward expanding the eligible electorate. New York and the state’s other cities could follow the example of Boston and many other cities which hold non-partisan “preliminary” elections, which winnow a wide field to just two candidates in a final election. That city will, as a result, see an election in November matching an avowed progressive Michelle Wu against the moderate Annissa Essaibi George.
Democrats, Republicans and independents will all have a voice.
In effect, Byron Brown has created the same dynamic in Buffalo — without the benefit of a system formally designed that way. One can only wonder if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who received just 16,898 votes in her 2018 Democratic primary victory over incumbent Joe Crowley — would have survived a general election write-in or independent campaign by Crowley, who would likely have appealed to the district’s independents and Republicans.
It’s worth noting that, although New York is not the only major city to have adopted ranked-choice voting to choose its mayor — a system designed, in theory, to ensure that the full range of voter views is reflected in the final outcome — it is the only city that combines ranked-choice with a partisan primary. Keep in mind, there are more than a million independent voters in the five boroughs, people who are effectively denied any choice, ranked or not, in the key Democratic primary.
Buffalo’s Byron Brown has rolled the dice in a high-stakes gamble — one from which the country will be able to draw a number of lessons. With recent polls showing him leading Walton, 59% to 28%, and high-profile endorsements such as that of Long Island Congressman Tom Suozzi, he may well succeed. Let’s hope either way, he teaches a lesson to the Empire State’s largest city.
Husock is a senior fellow in municipal government and urban housing policy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of the new book, “The Poor Side of Town and Why We Need It”.
