Election 2021: Buffalo mayor

Waiting for a winner in Buffalo's mayoral race may end up being even more tedious than watching a World Series game to its bitter, early-morning end.

In fact, while World Series games only seem to go on for weeks, the mayoral contest quite possibly will do just that.

America is watching as Buffalo elects a new mayor. Will it be a fifth term for Byron W. Brown or, having lost the Democratic primary to a political novice, will his write-in campaign fail, putting democratic socialist India Walton atop city government in New York’s second-largest city? Voters – those who bother to show up – will make the choice.

That, more than anything, is what’s at stake as the 2021 election season races to its conclusion in Erie County. It’s an election like no other in Buffalo, though one that a 2018 New York City race might have presaged.

A once-and-future restaurant-bar in South Buffalo last week became something new to South Buffalo: a campaign office for Mayor Byron W. Brown, assembled and led by South District Council Member Christopher P. Scanlon and home to volunteers staffing an aggressive get-out-the-write-in-vote effort before Tuesday's general election.

Not to be outdone, Democratic mayoral nominee India B. Walton has three campaign offices, as well as volunteers so loyal that 20 of them showed up on a Richmond Avenue front porch Friday night to hear from the candidate before spreading out and knocking on 1,300 doors in a driving rainstorm.

With just three days left in one of the most intense mayoral races in Buffalo history, India Walton and Byron Brown took to the streets Saturday to shake hands, hand out candy and persuade any undecided voters to come to their side.

Walton voted early – presumably for herself – while Brown gladhanded on Hertel Avenue. Both attracted crowds as they attended multiple events across the city in a final push to motivate undecided voters before Election Day.

Mayor Byron Brown stood outside the Delavan Grider Community Center as a steady flow of East Side residents arrived for early voting on a weekday afternoon last week.

Under a portable tent stacked with "Write Down Byron Brown" literature, the mayor and his team distributed pre-inked stamps emblazoned with his name and instructions for entering it on the ballot. They also handed out pamphlets and cards with exact directions for writing or stamping his name in the ballot's lower right corner, all part of the day's efforts to educate voters on the mechanics of a write-in vote.

India B. Walton kept introducing herself to voters answering her knocks on doors up and down Masten Avenue.

"I'm India Walton – the Democratic nominee for mayor," she said while handing out campaign literature on a night earlier this month.

A campaign manager hired in July to run Mayor Byron Brown's re-election campaign no longer holds that job.

Conor Hurley said he "transitioned" into another role in early October, leaving in place a team headed by Betsey Ball, who led Brown's failed Democratic primary effort against challenger India Walton.  

Mayor Byron Brown said Monday that his administration is ready to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the next two years on repairing aging streets and sidewalks and replacing street lights and lead pipes used for drinking water.

The mayor spoke about the planned infrastructure improvements to a small gathering at God City Senior Citizen Housing, a 7-story apartment building on Pershing Avenue in the Masten Park neighborhood.

It's possible that Buffalo voters will know who won the race for mayor by the time they go to bed on election night.

But the result of the hotly contested fight between Democratic nominee India B. Walton and four-term incumbent Mayor Byron W. Brown may be in doubt for weeks, Erie County's top election officials said Tuesday.

News, notes and observations on this most interesting campaign season:

• It’s significant on many levels that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the Bronx campaigned in Buffalo Saturday for Democratic mayoral nominee India Walton.

Before the June 22 Democratic primary for mayor, few predicted the bitter election now gripping Buffalo.

Byron W. Brown – the four-term mayor of New York's second largest city, former chairman of the state Democratic Party, and the face of Buffalo's renaissance – was viewed almost everywhere last spring as a Democratic primary shoo-in. Indeed, not one of Buffalo's establishment Democrats even considered a challenge to the mayor and his vaunted City Hall machine.

In South Buffalo on a recent Saturday evening, India B. Walton, all 4 feet, 11 inches of her, filled a tent with her passion and her presence – and kept the first promise of her campaign slogan. Pacing from side to side as she distilled her democratic socialist platform for 100 or so supporters, she could not have seemed more real. 

"Look to your right. Look behind you," she said. "There are children here. There are elders here, there are millennials and middle-aged folks. There are people from every race, class, creed, gender. This is the rainbow coalition. This is Buffalo! This is our city, our time. The name, the title of this event this evening, is 'A City Hall for All.' "

With just a week and half until Election Day, both mayoral candidates ramped up their efforts on Saturday, the first day of early voting – with India Walton’s gathering feeling something like a rock concert and Byron Brown’s rallies more like the traditional backyard barbecue rally.

Walton held a star-powered rally with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former gubernatorial candidate and "Sex and the City" star Cynthia Nixon that drew several hundred people to the Town Ballroom.

Byron Brown used a stamp to "write down" his name Saturday afternoon, as he's hoping other voters will do Nov. 2 in the general election in his bid to beat India Walton, who won the Democratic nomination in June in a stunning defeat of the four-time incumbent.

India B. Walton got some more big-name, progressive support for her mayoral campaign on Saturday.

Hundreds gathered for a downtown rally featuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and former gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon.

India B. Walton spent part of her day on Bailey Avenue, accepting praise from a member of the Common Council who said she is the right person to turn around the city's fortunes. 

Byron W. Brown spent part of his day on Chippewa Street, celebrating the completion of a project that will continue to make downtown a destination.

In the Buffalo mayoral race, much of the money flowing to the two candidates’ campaigns has come from outside of the city – ranging from a $1 donation sent by a teacher in Nebraska to a $7,700 check from a developer in Washington, D.C.

Just over one-half of the $1.5 million that incumbent Byron W. Brown raised in the first nine months of this year came from supporters inside the city, according to filings with the New York State Board of Elections.

WASHINGTON – Buffalo Democratic mayoral candidate India B. Walton on Friday picked up her second big endorsement in two days, as Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand announced that she is backing the primary winner over Mayor Byron W. Brown, who is waging a write-in campaign.

"I am proud to endorse India Walton for mayor of Buffalo," Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, said in a statement. "She ran a truly impressive grassroots campaign and clearly has a heart for public service."

WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer on Thursday announced that he is endorsing India Walton to be mayor of Buffalo, giving the winner of the Democratic primary a crucial boost only days before early voting begins in her race against Mayor Byron Brown.

"As Buffalo voters start to head to the polls this weekend, I urge them to cast their ballot for India Walton as the next mayor of Buffalo," Schumer said in a statement sent to The Buffalo News. "India is an inspiring community leader, mother, nurse and a lifelong Buffalonian with a clear progressive vision for her hometown."

Voters will have one more chance to see Buffalo's mayoral candidates face off directly against each other.

India Walton and Byron Brown have agreed to participate in the annual debate at St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute, a mainstay of the Western New York political scene since 1984.

When the Working Families Party failed to qualify India B. Walton for mayor of Buffalo back in March, observers viewed its inability to meet ballot deadlines as a major political blunder.

Walton, then a little-known challenger to Mayor Byron W. Brown, was considered at a disadvantage when the minor party missed filing deadlines for its line on the ballot.

The hot contest for mayor of Buffalo is suddenly dominating New York's political agenda as one of the state's top figures plunges into the race and another clings to the sidelines.

The Buffalo News learned Tuesday that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the Bronx will campaign in Buffalo on Saturday for a like-minded progressive, Democratic nominee India B. Walton, who is challenging four-term incumbent Byron W. Brown. At the same time, Gov. Kathy Hochul is making headlines by sitting out the race and expressing no preference for mayor of her hometown.

ALBANY – Citing the “unique situation” of two Democrats vying to win the general election in the Buffalo mayor’s race, Gov. Kathy Hochul Tuesday sought to stay on the sidelines in the heated race in her hometown.

Hochul is among a number of top Democrats in New York State who have avoided choosing sides between India Walton, who won the party’s mayoral primary earlier this year, and incumbent Mayor Byron Brown, who is waging a write-in effort after his primary loss.

Eight months ago, a Dunkirk nonprofit agency and the Fruit Belt Community Land Trust unveiled plans to bring 50 affordable housing units to the East Side neighborhood, adjacent to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

The goal of the deal, signed by Buffalo mayoral candidate India Walton when she led the land trust in 2020, was to create more lower-priced options for residents, while offering a path to ownership. The plan was to use low-income housing tax credits to finance the venture, which would be co-owned by the land trust and Southern Tier Environments for Living, or STEL.

Tom Suozzi showed up in Buffalo last weekend, and it wasn’t to fill up on chicken wings.

The congressman from Nassau County challenged Eliot Spitzer for governor in the 2006 Democratic primary and got creamed. That was back in Spitzer’s “steamroller” days. After the former governor’s fall from grace, Suozzi is entitled to an “I told you so” or two. He also made news by backing Byron Brown for re-election as mayor.

This story contains raw language.

Nine months before she won Buffalo's Democratic mayoral primary, India Walton walked in the middle of Court Street shouting into a megaphone to three dozen protesters in front of the downtown police headquarters.

As incumbent Byron Brown regrouped after losing the Democratic primary for mayor, Buffalo's tiny Republican Party offered him a sliver of encouragement.

If the mayor asked for help in motivating the city's 14,553 Republicans, said Buffalo Republican Chairman Andrew Pace in August, his organization just might aid Brown's write-in campaign against primary winner India Walton.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said it long before anyone would believe it.

“For the first time since 1950, we are preparing for population growth in Buffalo,” he said in his State of the City address in February 2015.

A few things to know about politics around here:

• Give credit to mayoral challenger India Walton for remaining true to her politics.

In 2017, when Byron Brown last ran for mayor of Buffalo, it seemed politicians across New York couldn’t wait to support his bid for a fourth term.

Twenty-five of them contributed about $24,000 to his 2017 campaign, state Board of Elections records show.

Competing rallies for Buffalo's mayoral candidates Saturday may have best illustrated the state, these days, of New York's Democratic Party.

In his downtown headquarters, incumbent Byron Brown launched a key "write-in education" component of his unprecedented effort after losing the June Democratic Party. And after starting a major effort to familiarize voters with the specifics of casting a write-in vote, Brown presented Rep. Thomas R. Suozzi of Nassau County to emphasize another major theme – the democratic socialism of Brown's opponent, India Walton.

On a tour of worker-owned cooperatives and locally owned businesses Thursday, mayoral candidate India Walton declared: "This is what the future of our Buffalo looks like."

Walton went to the West Side to showcase examples she said reflected her philosophy and the kinds of changes she wants to usher in on a larger scale.

India B. Walton, the Democratic nominee for mayor of Buffalo, had her car impounded Thursday for hundreds of dollars in unpaid parking tickets and an expired inspection.

“They towed my damn car,” Walton wrote on Twitter. “I’m late on some parking tickets, and my inspection sticker is expired. Those are my bad – I should have handled them on time. I’m handling them right now.”

Joe Kane was walking his big, black dog along Claremont Avenue in the Delaware Council District's Elmwood Village a few days ago when he was asked to weigh in on the torrid contest for mayor of Buffalo.

"What do you think, Joe? India Walton or Byron Brown?"

Buffalo Police Commissioner Byron C. Lockwood said Wednesday that he permitted his police officers to appear in the TV ad for Mayor Byron Brown's re-election that prompted an ethics complaint from a supporter of Democratic mayoral nominee India Walton.

The ad features 18 police officers who, according to Brown's campaign, volunteered to appear in the ad. In the ad, the officers – some wearing T-shirts identifying them as police – said they would be among 100 officers who would be laid off if Walton wins the mayoral election and she follows through with her plan to cut $7.5 million from the city law enforcement budget.

The big contest for mayor of Buffalo is prompting strange days in our politics.

When India Walton stunned the political world by drubbing four-term incumbent Byron Brown back in June, it took only a few hours for reality to set in. One by one, the major figures of the Erie County Democratic Party began weighing in.

Buffalo has long billed itself as "the City of Good Neighbors" – but should it be a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants?

That question, which never was discussed all that much locally until lately, stands as one of the issues in the mayoral race between Democratic nominee India B. Walton and the four-term incumbent she defeated in a June primary, Mayor Byron W. Brown.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown stepped up his political fundraising since losing the Democratic primary in June, according to a newly filed campaign finance disclosure.

The Brown campaign raised $831,279 from 2,555 contributions from July 12 to Sept. 27, according to a report filed by the mayor’s campaign with the state Board of Elections.

A Buffalo attorney and 138 others have complained to the city's Board of Ethics that a television ad sponsored by Mayor Byron W. Brown's re-election campaign violates a host of rules and regulations by portraying police officers in support of a political candidate.

Stephanie A. Adams filed her complaint on Monday, citing the ad that debuted on Sept. 14 featuring 18 police officers whom the campaign said volunteered to appear. The officers, some wearing T-shirts identifying them as police, said they would be among 100 officers who would be laid off as a result of mayoral challenger India B. Walton's plan to cut $7.5 million from the city law enforcement budget.

News, notes and observations:

• India Walton and Byron Brown are battling through one of the most intense mayoral campaigns in Buffalo history – even though the incumbent is not even on the ballot.

India Walton on Wednesday publicly turned down an invitation for a second debate against Mayor Byron Brown that would have been televised live. 

It was almost as though the switch flipped Monday to full-blown campaign mode in the contest for mayor of Buffalo.

India B. Walton seemed to provide the most electricity, introducing a new campaign manager, gaining support from County Legislature Chairwoman April N.M. Baskin and emphasizing her life experience to counter questions about her status as political rookie.

Amid the national attention Buffalo's mayoral race has drawn, one group has been mostly silent.

Most Common Council members are evasive about who they support in the Nov. 2 election: Byron Brown, the four-term incumbent who lost the Democratic primary, or India Walton, the self-described socialist whose surprising primary win puts her on the doorstep of becoming the city's first female mayor.

You can count on Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate, for leaving no question about his political convictions.

Representing the “progressive” wing of the state Democratic Party, the second ranking officer of New York City government is diving into politics far beyond the five boroughs – including the hot contest for mayor of Buffalo.

For more than six years, FBI agents and federal prosecutors have investigated people, businesses and political organizations closely associated with Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown.

Federal agents raided one of his administration’s City Hall offices, seized thousands of City Hall documents, questioned dozens of people, including city employees and contractors who did business with the city, and persuaded Brown’s former deputy mayor to become an informant.

When local officials of a service industry union endorsed India B. Walton Friday, it marked a milestone in the coveted world of labor support for the once little-known mayoral challenger.

“The 2,000 Buffalo-based members of Workers United Upstate know that she’ll be a champion for working Buffalonians in City Hall," said Gary Bonadonna, leader of Workers United Upstate New York. "Buffalo is a union town, and India Walton will be a union mayor.”

Fresh from key court rulings that at least temporarily disqualify incumbent Mayor Byron W. Brown from the November ballot, Democratic nominee India B. Walton Friday seemed to take it all in stride.

Yes, she said, Brown supporters must now maneuver through the relatively complicated steps of writing in his name, while her supporters enjoy the easier option of looking for her name on the Democratic line. But Walton acknowledged her campaign has always prepared for either Brown’s opposition on a minor party line or as a write-in candidate.

State appellate judges Thursday ruled Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown's name should not be on the mayoral ballot in November.

“Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did.” – Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in his 1984 acceptance speech.

For his honesty, Mondale went on to lose 49 of 50 states in one of the biggest landslides in presidential history.

Mayor Byron W. Brown is stepping up his attack on challenger India B. Walton’s crime fighting approach in a new ad claiming her plan to chop $7.5 million from the Buffalo Police Department budget will spur the layoff of 100 officers.

After a series of positive television spots throughout his unsuccessful Democratic primary campaign and early in the general election contest, Brown is now concentrating on his opponent’s police platform. The new ad that began airing Tuesday features 18 police officers who the campaign said volunteered to convey that the Walton plan will result in a department with significantly fewer members.

“Let’s tell the truth. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.” – 1984 Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in a debate against incumbent President Ronald Reagan, who was overwhelmingly re-elected

This isn’t 1984, of course, and the issues in Buffalo are different from those of 37 years ago. Nevertheless, observers of the Buffalo mayoral debate last week may have been surprised when Democratic nominee and primary victor India B. Walton declared that she would raise city taxes.

Though letters to the editor and talk radio regularly weigh in on the City of Buffalo vs. Orchard Park for a new Buffalo Bills stadium, the two candidates for mayor of Buffalo are not joining in.

Neither incumbent Byron W. Brown nor challenger India B. Walton are pushing for any city site proposed over the past few years as the Bills make the case for a new stadium estimated to cost $1.4 billion. As recently as last week's mayoral debate, the candidates mused over the benefits and advantages of a downtown facility, but neither is raising any serious opposition to the team's preference for a new facility adjacent to the current Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park.

More candidates for mayor of Buffalo are emulating Byron W. Brown’s last-minute efforts to qualify for the general election ballot, raising the possibility of a crowded November field that elections officials say could produce “chaos.”

At least three potential candidates are now circulating designating petitions for mayor, said Erie County Republican Elections Commissioner Ralph M. Mohr, who predicts a spate of election law litigation could stem from the recent rulings by U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. and State Supreme Court Justice Paul B. Wojtaszek. Both qualified Brown’s Buffalo Party for the ballot after missing state deadlines.

In their first head-to-head meeting of the 2021 campaign for mayor Thursday evening, incumbent Byron W. Brown and challenger India B. Walton could not have drawn sharper contrasts.

Mayoral candidate India Walton on Wednesday called for amending the city charter to establish an independent police oversight body with investigatory and subpoena power.

Police accountability is one of several planks in the “Building Healthy Communities” policy agenda she unveiled to create a safer and healthier Buffalo.

Byron Brown’s write-in campaign and the Democratic Party’s lack of support and protection for India Walton reflect a dangerous and growing trend within our nation: the subversion of democratic rule. Alarmingly, they have disguised those actions, including Brown’s behavior before and after the primary, as political strategies.

Brown didn’t see Walton as a viable candidate. It started with his early refusal to debate her. He was so confident that he would win that he didn’t even bother to send out campaign material. His supporters must have felt the same way because very few “Elect Mayor Byron Brown” signs graced their lawns. Had Brown or his staff scoped the city they would have noticed numerous “Vote India Walton For Mayor” signs. Those signs dotted lawns all throughout Buffalo’s nine districts.

A former Republican Congressman who ran for president as an independent in 1980 was the precedent for Mayor Byron W. Brown being allowed on the general election ballot in November, despite missing a state petition deadline by months.

Lawyers for supporters of Brown’s re-election effort relied on a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson in convincing a federal judge to put Brown’s name on the ballot.

U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. on Friday ordered the Erie County Board of Elections to put Mayor Byron Brown's name on an independent ballot line for Buffalo mayor in the November general election.

It was a crucial legal win for the mayor, coming less than a week before the state deadline to certify ballots. And it boosts his odds of holding onto the office after his loss in the Democratic primary on June 22 had put him in a position of having to mount a write-in campaign because he had not sought other ballot lines before the primary.    

After spending the primary campaign lambasting Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown for refusing to debate, Democratic mayoral nominee India B. Walton is refusing all but one general election debate invitation.

And Brown, after refusing to debate during the primary campaign, is accepting invitations that require him to appear on stage, even with two opponents who don't have the campaign resources that he and Walton have.

The mayoral campaign picked up momentum Tuesday, with incumbent Byron Brown touting support from veterans and developer Doug Jemal, while India Walton picked up Latino support with her promises for more affordable housing and less gentrification.

“His welcoming and his sincerity and his commitment to seeing this city grow and become a better city is why I’m standing here in front of you today," Jemal – the Washington developer who has taken Buffalo by storm with more than a half dozen major real estate projects since coming to town in 2016 – said of Brown during an event at the USS Little Rock at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park. Jemal called the mayor "a special individual."

Though she is supported by almost every elected Democrat in Buffalo and won the party's June primary for mayor, India B. Walton requested and, on Thursday evening officially received, the party's endorsement.

Erie County Democratic Chairman Jeremy J. Zellner said the vote of the city committee, though devoid of any real consequence, cements Walton's position as the Democratic nominee after the party earlier this year endorsed Mayor Byron W. Brown for a fifth term. Zellner said the move now reinforces the results of Walton's decisive primary victory on June 22, forcing Brown to wage an unprecedented write-in effort for the November general election.

Buffalo, like many other cities in the United States, is in the middle of a sustained storm of gun violence.

The number of people shot in Buffalo this year through July is 61% greater than the average over the last decade, according to a Buffalo News analysis of the latest police department data.

Mayor Byron W. Brown has launched a petition drive to try and gain an independent line on the Nov. 2 ballot by disputing the petition filing deadline set earlier this year by the State Legislature. Brown's campaign is arguing in favor of the previous deadline, which would expire on Tuesday, but it would not cite the legal justification for its interpretation.

As a political consultant, Christopher M. Grant of Clarence has logged his share of media buys over the years in Western New York and across the country.

Grant, a Republican, observes the contest between two Democrats for mayor of Buffalo this year as an outsider. But he knows an official donnybrook when he sees one.

With only 14,553 enrolled members and outnumbered 7 to 1 by Democrats, Republicans in the City of Buffalo represent a lonely bunch.

They haven't elected a mayor since Chester Kowal in 1961, have registered little influence in city politics for decades, and didn't even bother to name a challenger to Democratic incumbent Byron W. Brown in 2021.

When Steven M. Casey appeared in a federal courtroom Thursday to answer wire fraud charges against his political consulting company, he may have provided a trove of potential campaign fodder aimed at his old boss – Mayor Byron W. Brown.

A former deputy mayor and longtime Brown strategist, Casey has always dwelled in the political shadows while working closely with controversial figures such as former Erie County Democratic Chairman G. Steven Pigeon – who has logged his own share of courtroom appearances since both of their homes were raided by authorities back in 2015.

If Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown is singing the blues these days, it’s probably to the tune of “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.”

While hefty contributions to him poured in prior to the June 22 Democratic primary, the latest campaign filings show them drying up after a shocking loss forced him to wage a long-shot write-in campaign to try to keep his job.

Buffalo police investigated a complaint in 2018 that a man was suspected of dealing drugs from the Fruit Belt house of Democratic mayoral nominee India B. Walton, according to police reports and Walton's former landlord.

The owner of the house said he forced Walton to leave after confronting her about complaints of a constant flow of people in and out of the Lemon Street house that led the landlord and a neighbor to believe that drugs were being sold there. The man, according to court records, was released three years earlier from prison for selling cocaine.

ALBANY – As people wonder what a democratic socialist might bring to Buffalo following the June Democratic mayoral primary victory by India Walton, a living, breathing example already exists in New York: the state Legislature.

Their ranks are small – just six out of 213 lawmakers in both houses – but advocates on causes from housing and taxes to criminal justice matters say these new democratic socialists are prodding an already liberal-dominated Legislature further to the left.

Billionaire Robert E. Rich Jr., chairman and majority owner of Rich Products, donated $10,000 to Mayor Byron W. Brown’s reelection campaign.

Developer Douglas Jemal and the executive vice president of his company, Paul Millstein, each donated $5,000.

India Walton’s campaign to become mayor of Buffalo saw an explosion in fundraising since winning the June Democratic primary against incumbent Mayor Byron Brown.

Walton out-raised the four-term mayor during a recent 33-day reporting period – powered by an infusion of mostly small donations and a steady flow of left-leaning supporters from around the state and country.

WASHINGTON – Eight national progressive groups lined up behind Democratic mayoral candidate India Walton on Tuesday, urging Mayor Byron W. Brown to drop his write-in bid – and signaling the increasing national focus on the battle in Buffalo.

"We, as organizations representing thousands of active members in Buffalo, voice our support for India and urge Mayor Byron Brown to respect the will of the voters and facilitate a smooth transition to a Walton administration," the groups wrote in a joint statement.

ALBANY – On primary night on June 22, Democratic insiders in the five boroughs of New York City were anxiously awaiting returns from crucial campaign contests for mayor of New York and City Council posts.

Not Queens resident Zohran Mamdani, or many other left-leaning Democratic insurgents like him who are among a new breed of activists occupying the furthest left of an already leftward-leaning party in the Empire State.

Twenty-nine years ago this week, George Borrelli handed off the Politics Column to his whippersnapper successor for chronicling campaigns and elections around here.

And in a conversation a few days ago, the retired political reporter for The Buffalo News (who started covering local politics in the 1950s) confirmed what everyone theorizes about India Walton’s victory over Byron Brown in the Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo.

When Byron W. Brown on Monday launched a write-in campaign after losing the June 22 Democratic primary for mayor, the cramped Statler stage he chose for his announcement seemed to reflect confidence and all kinds of support.

The selected assemblage of about two dozen obliged with cheers and high fives for his challenge to primary winner India B. Walton.

The night before Quentin Suttles was sentenced to four years in prison on  a gun possession charge, a party was held to send him off.

Suttles' name was one of those evoked amid Black Lives Matter protests in Buffalo last year after video circulated on social media of him being punched by a Buffalo police officer during an arrest while he was out on the gun charge.

Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown had twice as many absentee votes as India B. Walton, but it was not enough to overcome her lead in the Democratic primary for mayor.

Walton picked up 505 absentee votes, while Brown had 1,002, according to the Erie County Board of Elections, which counted the absentee ballots Wednesday.

One down, one to go.

But India Walton’s bid to become Buffalo’s first female mayor still could get ugly. With Carl Paladino lurking in the background, how could it not?

India B. Walton is not the first politician to note that community violence is at the top of the list of issues facing the city.

But Walton says her administration would focus on the underlying causes of crime rather than heavier policing.

A new and fiery Byron W. Brown sought to revive his failed mayoral campaign Monday with a whole new persona.

Gone was the aloof incumbent seemingly self-assured of an unprecedented fifth term leading Buffalo. Instead, Brown launched a "do over" candidacy, passionately announcing in the Statler Terrace Room a write-in campaign for the Nov. 2 general election to reclaim the office he preliminarily lost to newcomer India B. Walton on June 22.

Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown hasn't said whether he's decided to mount a write-in campaign to try and retain the office he has held since 2006.

But Brown sounded definitive Sunday when he rejected support from controversial developer and former gubernatorial candidate Carl P. Paladino.

Where do we begin with notes and observations on the most stunning election upset in our city’s history?

• If any of your politically astute friends claim they knew India Walton would beat four-term incumbent Mayor Byron Brown on Tuesday, don’t believe them. We’re not sure India Walton knew.

Following a push by Buffalo's business community to urge Mayor Byron W. Brown to wage a write-in campaign for November's general election, supporters of India B. Walton say they can play that game, too.

The Democratic and Working Families parties, labor unions, community groups and progressive organizations from around the country say they can also lend money and people power to counter any business-oriented effort should Brown decide to continue. It all points to plans for significant effort on both sides if Brown wages a long-shot write-in campaign following the primary that generated paltry turnout and a socialist as the Democratic candidate for mayor.

India Walton didn't start a revolution Tuesday night.

But she did give democratic competition a jolt.

Business leaders from throughout Western New York are urging Byron W. Brown to run a write-in campaign for mayor of Buffalo following his Tuesday defeat by India B. Walton in the Democratic primary.

Carl P. Paladino, the Buffalo developer and one time Brown critic who now solidly backs the mayor, was planning to host a meeting Thursday night to coalesce business support behind an uphill effort that would require significant money and organization to accomplish. But Paladino said the meeting has been rescheduled to a later date. 

Byron W. Brown, stung by Tuesday's shocker loss to challenger India B. Walton in the Democratic primary for mayor, is weighing a last-ditch effort to salvage a fifth term through a write-in campaign in the November general election.

Several sources, including Erie County Democratic Chairman Jeremy J. Zellner, say Brown is holed up with his campaign team to determine if he can wage a write-in effort – considered more than daunting in political circles – especially in ultra-Democratic Buffalo.

Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown received fewer votes in his 2021 Democratic mayoral primary – which he appears to have lost to India Walton – than he did in any of his four prior Democratic mayoral primaries. 

In the 2021 primary, Brown and his campaign did not get out the vote like they had in prior primary races. 

India B. Walton, the community activist barely known to many Buffalo voters just months ago, shocked four-term incumbent Byron W. Brown in Tuesday's Democratic primary for mayor in what may rank as the most historic upset in the city's political history.

Brown refused to concede late Tuesday night until "every vote is counted," and absentee votes must also be tabulated; 1,536 were returned as of Tuesday. But based on the vast majority of votes cast during early voting and on Tuesday, and insider views that the absentee ballots most likely will not affect the outcome, Walton appeared to be headed toward a win and a January inauguration as the 63rd mayor of Buffalo – the first woman to hold the office.