University Council member Rasheed Wyatt was the latest in a flurry of prominent Western New York politicians to put their name in mix for the City of Buffalo’s next mayor. Wyatt joins an already crowded field of State Senator Sean Ryan and former Buffalo fire commissioner Garnell Whitfield. Current Acting Mayor Christopher Scanlon, filling in for the remainder of former Mayor Byron Brown’s term who resigned to take a job as CEO of Western Regional Off-Track Betting is also expected to run for the office although he has not officially announced anything yet. Such a crowded field with so many well-known names begs the question who if anyone is the front runner? Shawn Donahue, a political science professor at the University at Buffalo discusses with WBFO’s Jamal Harris Jr. depth the strengths and weakness of the candidates.
Beginning with Acting Mayor Christopher Scanlon. Scanlon has been on the Common Council since 2012 before becoming acting Mayor in mid-October many would think the experience to go with the incumbency would give him a leg up; Donahue however says at the moment it’s hard to tell what effect Scanlon being already office will have due the city’s financial problems.
“I think for Scanlon, it works both ways, because, you know, it's a very high-profile job. You know, probably the only other higher profile job in the region would be maybe the County Executive in Erie County. So, he's able to get a lot of press and attention, kind of anytime he wants to, and also, it's going to help with fundraising. But on the other hand, the City of Buffalo has a lot of problems financially, so having to try to solve those is going to be something that, if there is a lot of pain attached to them, that the voters that might be experiencing some of that pain would be would potentially blame Scanlon.”
The City of Buffalo’s projected budget gap for 2025 is between $15-40 million dollars. Such a substantial deficit number leave many to wonder if taxes will increase, popular city-wide programs are cut, or a combination of both.
“Well, I think it depends on, you know, is this going to be able to close some of the holes in the budget, or is it going to have to require maybe even more sacrifices and pain? Because another thing that I think New York and other blue states are going to experience is that you're going to have a Trump administration with a Republican Congress. So how is that going to affect money flowing in or not?”
The city’s fiscal budget is not due until the spring but the city’s Common Council just recently approved the city’s $110 million 2025 Capital budget; much to the displeasure of City Comptroller Barbara Miller Williams who said it would exceed the city’s debt cap.
The next candidate being Garnell Whitfield; the former Buffalo Fire commissioner is the only one of the four to never hold a locally elected public office, which Donahue mentions can be used to his advantage.
“Well, he's kind of the interesting candidate in the race. You know, he can run, that I'm not a politician, you know, I'm a manager. I can run things. He also seems to have the base on the East side of Buffalo, where there's a very high concentration of Democrats, so it'll be interesting to see. You know, how much he's able to fundraise and run a campaign.”
The third candidate being University Councilmember Rasheed Wyatt. Wyatt brings familiarity and name recognition to the race. Having been a Common Council member since 2014, Wyatt is most known for being critical of former Mayor Byron Browns administration. Signs of unpopularity for the former mayor were starting to seep through cracks during the 2021 election cycle. Brown lost the Democratic primary during that election cycle and won under 60% of the vote during the general election which is the only time that Brown has failed to obtain 60% of the electorate. If the trend of Brown unpopularity continues to hold true that could be a welcoming trend for the Wyatt Campaign.
“Well, you know, if you have a lot of voters that that are upset with former Mayor Brown, you know, with him having a record as being a strong critic of him, you know, that's, that's something definitely that, that that he could play on and plus, the other thing is, there, there are a lot of Democratic primary voters in that university district.”
Wyatt has been a known critic of the mismanagement of city spending. Wyatt was the only council member to vote against the city’s capital budget.
The final candidate State Senator Sean Ryan. His Senate seat in Albany has allowed him to stay a bit more neutral on any of the controversial local topics. Donahue explains how despite not directly representing the East side of Buffalo much over his political career, his senate status could offset the potential disadvantage.
“One of the things about Senator Ryan is that having been in the legislature in Albany. And you know the legislators are back a large part of the year. It's allowed him to kind of stay above a little bit of it, of kind of some of the internal city politics that that some of the other candidates, you know, clearly, if you were on the council that you really couldn't. I think that you'd have to kind of look back in different iterations of his senate district and then previously, his assembly district. I mean, clearly, he's not represented much of the east side of Buffalo, but he's represented a lot of other parts of Buffalo.”
A big part of running in highly contested races like this is how much money your able to raise and spend on your campaign. So far Senator Ryan is lapping his competition telling the Buffalo news he has over $500,000 on hand last month. Scanlon reportedly had over $126,000 according to a campaign finance report filed in July. Wyatt and Whitfield come in at the lowest so far. Whitfield does not have a financial disclosure report on record yet and Wyatt just over $5,200.
The Democratic primary will take place on June 24th2025. Early voting begins June 14th and ends June 22nd To listen to the full conversation with Shawn Donahue click on the blue listen button above.
