How a democratic socialist and working-class mother of four nearly won the mayor’s race in New York’s second-biggest city

India Walton upset the status quo in one of the nation’s poorest cities, Alex Woodward reports

Candidate for Buffalo mayor India Walton holds a campaign event the day before election day in Buffalo, New York, 1 November 2021. (REUTERS)

The mayor of New York’s second-largest city has won re-election, and he wasn’t even on the ballot.

Byron Brown, who was first elected mayor of Buffalo in 2005, was defeated in a stunning Democratic primary election this summer by 39-year-old India Walton, who appeared to be on the cusp of being the nation’s first socialist mayor in decades, and the city’s first-ever woman – and first-ever Black woman – to hold the office in Buffalo.

She was the only name on the ballot in the general election on 2 November, and she received endorsements from US Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both senators from the state’s delegation – Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand – and prominent progressives Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

On 3 November, Ms Walton – a mother of four who gave birth to her first child when she was 14 years old, earned her GED to put herself through nursing school, and directed an affordable housing organisation before running for office – said it “seems unlikely” she will win.

Mr Brown, who waged a massive write-in campaign to remain in office, declared victory on election night as early results rolled in.

“One major accomplishment of ours is ending the era of complacent Buffalo politicians,” Ms Walton said in a statement on 3 November. “No longer can they feel confident that they can rest easy in their seats of power.”

After his shocking primary election loss, rather than unite around the party’s nominee, Mr Brown sought a legal challenge to get back on the ballot and relied on a coalition of conservatives and moderates for a massive write-in campaign to tell voters to include his name on their ballots – spending thousands of dollars to send out ink stampers bearing his name and setting up “voter education stations” to instruct voters how to do so.

Ms Walton did not receive endorsements from Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul (a Buffalo native) or Jay Jacobs, chair of the New York State Democratic Committee – who faced immediate backlash last month after comparing Ms Walton’s candidacy to a scenario in which the party would abstain from an endorsing a candidate like former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke if he were to win a Democratic primary. He later apologised.

The race devolved into bizarre dynamics, with Mr Brown enlisting support from Donald Trump supporters and offering little in terms of a ballot line, telling supporters to “Write Down Byron Brown.”

At the final, caustic debate between the candidates, Mr Brown argued that he does not even see Ms Walton as a Democrat.

“I think her ideas for the city of Buffalo are bad at best, and unworkable,” he said.

“I won the Democratic primary,” she responded. “Secondly, I am a self-avowed democratic socialist. The first word in that is ‘Democrat.’”

The race reflected some of the greater fissures in party unity, caught between the competing visions of its growing progressive flank and institutional moderates, who now largely are facing a fight for their political lives in upcoming midterm elections in 2022.

Her ascendance also introduced a rare candidate for executive office – one without an Ivy League degree and with first-hand experience understanding the depths of economic inequality in a city where, in 2019, roughly three in 10 people, or four in 10 children, lived in poverty.

In her campaign, Ms Walton invoked her experience as a poor, Black single mother and healthcare worker, as well as as a survivor of domestic abuse. After she left her job at Fruit Belt Community Land Trust to run for office, she worked as a food delivery worker for DoorDash.

She also pointed to past legal issues as examples of the strains on lower-income communities. In 2003, she was ordered to repay $295 food stamp overpayment after failing to report income that would disqualify her when she was 21 years old. Towards the end of her campaign, her car was impounded for unpaid parking tickets.

Her campaign was also caught in a “defund the police” narrative that opponents cast as a radical, unrealistic vision at odds with American norms, with Mr Brown leaning on support from Republican groups and Donald Trump supporters who carried his message.

The Republican State Committee promoted Mr Brown in mailings that praised his “effective, commonsense leadership” and warned against Ms Walton’s “radical agenda” that “will destroy Buffalo.”

Ms Walton proposed deploying a corps of first responders made up of social workers and other mental health professionals, rather than rely on police.

New York Working Families Party director Sochie Nnaemeka said it is “clear Buffalo is going through a major transformation”, no matter the outcome of the election. “India Walton has shown what’s possible when working people come together and challenge the political status quo,” she said.

“We need to show we can do the damn thing. We need to show that we can govern in executive positions,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said during a rally for Ms Walton last month. “If we do it in Buffalo, we can do it anywhere.”

Pundits have pointed to Ms Walton’s loss in Buffalo as evidence of the left’s political instability against a fragile Democratic status quo, potentially facing a slaughter in 2022 midterm elections. But her victory could have proven her party’s big-tent potential.

“We fought as hard as we possibly could. We left everything on the field,” Ms Walton said in a statement. “And I believe today, as fervently as I ever have, that the hour will come when we will finally draw down power to the everyday people of this city, and build the safe, healthy Buffalo we all need and deserve.”