Jan 7
2026
Special election set for Ryan’s Senate seat
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The special election to fill the 61st District state Senate seat — vacated last week by Sean Ryan before he was sworn in as Buffalo’s mayor — is coming as quickly as state law allows.
Gov. Kathy Hochul last Friday set the date for Feb. 3. She could have picked a date as late as the first Tuesday in March, but instead chose the first possible Tuesday allowed under the law — just over a month after Ryan resigned the seat.
The move favors the four political parties with automatic ballot access in a special election process that already privileges major party insiders by minimizing the time allotted to independent candidates who might want to petition their way onto the ballot.
Paul Wolf, an advocate for election reforms, called the process “fundamentally undemocratic” because of the power it confers on “party bosses” to determine the candidates. The governor’s decision to call the special election quickly just makes matters worse, he said.
“This compressed timeline makes it nearly impossible for voters to learn about the candidates or for any grassroots organizing to occur,” Wolf said.
Here’s how the special election works:
- Leadership of the four parties with automatic ballot slots — Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives and Working Families — must designate their candidates for the seat by Friday. Those candidates have until Monday to accept the ballot lines.
- The Erie County Democratic Committee on Wednesday evening is expected to nominate its chair, Jeremy Zellner. The Erie County Republican Committee has already chosen Amherst businessman Dan Gagliardo, who in November lost his bid for Amherst town supervisor. The Working Families and Conservative parties likely will line up behind those two candidates or sit out the race.
- A candidate who wants to run on an independent ballot line next month has until Monday to collect and submit 1,000 valid signatures from voters in the district. The first day to collect signatures was last Friday. That would be a heavy lift in good weather, let alone in the dead of winter.
- So, Zellner and Gagliardo likely will be the only choices on the ballot. The winner will serve out the remainder of Ryan’s term, which ends Dec. 31.
- Candidates for a full, two-year term must run in June’s primary — assuming they face a challenger from their own party — and then November’s general election.
Enter 149th District Assemblymember Jonathan Rivera.
The Buffalo Democrat declared his candidacy for the 61st District Senate seat even before Ryan won the mayor’s race in November. He intends to enter the Democratic primary in June, regardless of next month’s outcome.
Rivera said the special election likely will turn out relatively few voters, and the designation process tunes out the voices of district residents.
“There’s a reason why Democrats feel disengaged across this country, and it’s because they’re often fed candidates that they never wanted, and they’re not given options,” Rivera said.
“The primary is going to do that for them. That’s the real electorate that’s going to make this decision.”
Allies turned adversaries
Rivera has long been tight with Ryan. He comes from the West Side coalition of Democrats associated with his father, Niagara District Councilmember David Rivera, as well as Ryan, former Assemblymember Sam Hoyt, and Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. He succeeded Ryan in the Assembly when Ryan was elected to the Senate in 2020. He was active in Ryan’s mayoral campaign.
Jonathan Rivera has also long been an ally of Zellner. He’s put in time working on numerous campaigns for fellow Democrats. He worked jobs in Poloncarz’s office and in the county’s department of public works of the sort that are parceled out to loyal and effective party operatives.
Erie County Democratic Committee Chair Jeremy Zellner (courtesy WKBW 7 News) and 149th District Assemblymember Jonathan Rivera (photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel).
Rivera and Zellner began jockeying for position well before Ryan won the Democratic primary for mayor last June.
Neither is especially well known in the district. Zellner’s name is familiar mostly to party insiders and political junkies. Rivera’s Assembly district overlaps parts of the Senate district in the city, but then stretches south along the lake to Hamburg, whereas the Senate district runs north of Buffalo into the City of Tonawanda, the towns of Amherst, Grand Island, and Tonawanda, and the villages of Kenmore and Williamsville.
Zellner spent last summer and fall lining up support from Democratic Party leaders in the towns and villages, which make up the bulk of the district.
He said he has recused himself from his party’s choice of special election candidates, which he described as “more open and transparent and democratic” than that of any other party. More than 80 party leaders will take part in tonight’s vote, he said.
“And yes, I’ve called every one of them and asked for their support, and I feel very good about it,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of encouragement to make this run from within the district from day one.”
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomRivera, meanwhile, has secured a long list of endorsements from labor unions — about a dozen so far, he said. He said labor supports him in part because he’s learned the ins and outs of Albany during his five years in the Assembly.
“I’m the only candidate in the race that has the experience, that knows what this job is,” he said.
Zellner countered that he’s “lived in this district my whole life … I know it like the back of my hand.” He said he’s knocked on the doors of more than 800 Democrats already and received “a strong positive response” to his candidacy.
“I’ve had a lot of encouragement from folks in this district to do this,” Zellner said. “Not people from New York City, not people from Albany, but people from this 61st District.”
Democrats vs. Republican
Zellner and Rivera present a united front on one issue: Both argue the district needs a Democrat in Albany to fight against the Trump administration’s cuts to Medicaid and other safety-net programs.
Gagliardo, the Amherst Republican, faces an uphill battle next month and in November’s general election, should he choose to run in both. At last count, there were about 93,000 registered Democrats in the district, compared to about 50,000 Republicans. Close to 11,000 voters were registered with the Conservative, Working Families and other minor parties. More than 49,000 registered voters in the district have no party affiliation.
Gagliardo said his race for town supervisor raised his profile in the district and gave him “a lot of insight” into the issues important to voters.
“We’ve already done all this work,” he said. “And we switched a lot of people — a lot of Democrats, a lot of blanks. They voted for me because they believed the things I was saying.”
Gagliardo characterized the special election as a contest between “a working man” and “an entrenched political boss.”
As for the June Democratic primary, on the face of it the demographics favor Zellner, a City of Tonawanda native. About three-quarters of the district’s registered Democrats live outside of Buffalo. The towns of Amherst and Tonawanda — where party leaders have lined up behind Zellner’s candidacy — account for nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters.
The 61st State Senate District. Map courtesy of the New York State Senate.
Some of Zellner’s supporters have suggested the district would be better represented by a suburban Democrat rather than a city dweller like Rivera. Rivera called that argument “divisive.” He noted that Ryan, a white man from Buffalo, represented the district for five years. Poloncarz, a white man from the city, represents the entire county. Tim Kennedy, yet another white man from Buffalo, represents a congressional district that runs the gamut from cities to farm country.
“They’ve never had that argument thrown at them,” Rivera said. “But when somebody that is Hispanic, not a white man, pursues this, then suddenly it’s, you know, I’m ‘too urban.’”
As of November, Zellner had about $357,000 in the campaign committee he has used to run for party chair. He can redirect most of that money to his Senate campaign. He said he also expects to qualify for public matching funds, which requires at least 150 individual contributions between $5 and $250 from voters within the district.
Rivera in July reported just shy of $22,000 in the bank. He’s been fundraising for the past six months, however, and hopes to qualify for public matching funds, too, in order to level the playing field with Zellner.
“Between organized labor and public campaign financing, I feel very good,” Rivera said.
Gagliardo all but emptied the account he used to run for Amherst town supervisor in the fall, reporting just $1,700 in the bank at the end of November. But he has the personal resources to self-fund a month-long special election campaign, and — at least so far — has no fellow Republicans trying to tap the same donor pool, should he decide to run in the general election as well. He said he, too, expects to qualify for public matching funds.
So far, only Rivera, Zellner and Gagliardo have registered campaign committees with the state elections board.
All three declared candidates must file campaign finance disclosures on Jan. 15. Special election candidates must make another round of disclosures on Jan. 23, 11 days before the election.
