Tag: City Hall

Jun 26

2025

Buffalo’s mayoral election has been settled

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The fat lady has sung. Sean Ryan will become mayor come January 1. The November election is simply a formality, barring any drastic unforeseen circumstance. Prior to the primary, Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon stated his intention to run on a third-party line if he didn’t win the Democratic nomination, although in his concession speech Tuesday night he said he had some “soul searching” to do. The cold, hard fact is that he was only able to garner 35 percent of the vote Tuesday. His strategy, should he continue his campaign into November, is to pull a Jimmy Griffin — supplement[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Jun 25

2025

Buffalo primary voters sought change in City Hall

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With a commanding voice Tuesday, Buffalo’s Democratic voters said they preferred state Sen. Sean Ryan to lead the city over Acting Mayor Christopher Scanlon. At polling sites across the city Tuesday, voters told Investigative Post reporters that they were ready for change in City Hall — be that Ryan, former fire commissioner Garnell Whitfield, University Common Council Member Rasheed Wyatt or even newcomer Anthony Tyson-Thompson. Most of those interviewed favored someone other than Scanlon, a reflection of the actual vote. The acting mayor, some said, had failed to gain their trust eight months after succeeding Byron Brown, who resigned in[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Jun 25

2025

Five takeaways from the Buffalo mayoral primary

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Editor’s note: This story was updated Wednesday at 7:15 p.m. State Sen. Sean Ryan scored a resounding victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for Buffalo mayor, beating Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon — his chief rival — by 11 percentage points. Ryan finished with over 46 percent of the vote in the five-way race, while the incumbent had just over 35 percent. The three other candidates — former fire commissioner Garnell Whitfield, University District Council Member Rasheed Wyatt and former Assembly staffer Anthony Tyson-Thompson — split the rest. Here are five takeaways from yesterday’s results: It was all about turnout Ryan’s base[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Jun 24

2025

Sean Ryan handily wins Buffalo mayoral primary

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State Sen. Sean Ryan beat Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon in yesterday’s Democratic primary by about 11 percentage points — nearly 3,000 votes. I thought it would be closer. So did Ryan’s campaign team. There are provisional ballots still to be counted, but not enough to change the results. We’ll provide an analysis of the race and what voters say motivated them this afternoon on our website. But here’s a few things to know about how it broke down: — Ryan had 12,249 votes at the close of the night, Scanlon 9,278. Ryan captured 46.5 percent of the vote, Scanlon 35.2[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Jun 19

2025

Buffalo’s $2 million mayoral primary

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Next Tuesday’s Democratic primary election for Buffalo mayor is already a $2 million affair, as of the most recent campaign finance disclosures, with a weekend of TV and radio spots, phone banks, social media ads and mailers still to come. That figure doesn’t count independent expenditures — money spent by political committees unaffiliated with, but supporting, a one candidate or another. The first such independent expenditure took place this week in support of Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon, paid for by an Albany-based group whose backers are for now a mystery. On its own account, Scanlon’s campaign committee has spent $950,879[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Jun 12

2025

Political profile: Garnell Whitfield

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Garnell Whitfield at his Dec. 3, 2024 ,mayoral campaign launch. Photo by Nate Peracinny. Garnell Whitfield, the former fire commissioner, has specific ideas about what he’d do if elected mayor of Buffalo — about city finances, overtime costs, the shortage of affordable housing, and a host of other issues. But those policy positions aren’t the platform on which he’s built his campaign. And he doesn’t think candidates and voters should get bogged down in debating, for example, whose plan to rescue city finances is better, or how to restructure city government. Rather, he hopes voters will measure the candidates’ characters[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Jun 11

2025

Political profile: Anthony Tyson-Thompson

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Mayor candidate Anthony Tyson-Thompson Anthony Tyson-Thompson is to many voters the least familiar of the five candidates running in the June 24 Democratic primary for Buffalo mayor.  He was the last candidate to join the field, skipping the party’s months-long endorsement process and announcing his candidacy in mid-April, just two weeks before nominating petitions were due. His campaign is largely self-funded, he said, and it shows. He has few campaign signs around the city, no ads and no mailers — just social media. The East Side native is also the youngest mayoral candidate, at 34, with the least experience in[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Jun 10

2025

Political profile: Rasheed Wyatt

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Rasheed Wyatt in Council chambers. There is a consistent theme in University District Council Member Rasheed Wyatt’s solutions to almost every ailment and policy question confronting Buffalo and its government. Ask the people what they want, he says.  And then do what they tell you to do. In an hour-long interview with Investigative Post, Wyatt — one of five Democrats competing in the June 24 primary for Buffalo mayor  — invoked “the people” and their wishes no fewer than a dozen times. In response to nearly every question asked, he proposed convening “a community conversation” to learn “what’s good for[...]

Posted 6 months ago
Investigative Post