Early voting in Buffalo’s Democratic mayoral primary starts this Saturday. But which city neighborhoods are funding the race?
BTPM NPR mapped out which Democratic primary candidate has the most individual donors in each of Buffalo’s 35 neighborhoods. Explore the map below to see what we found.
BTPM NPR also made charts showing the total cash raised by individual donors for Democratic candidates, and the total individual donors for each Democratic candidate.
Takeaways
The visualizations account for donations made by individuals only. Contributions from political action committees, LLCs, corporations and campaign committee transfers are discounted.
1) Christopher Scanlon has both the most individual donors and amount of money raised both within and outside of the city
2) The South Park neighborhood has the highest number of individual donors by far, with a total of 329. Scanlon dominates here, bringing in 326 individual donors to Ryan’s three
3) The Elmwood-Bidwell neighborhood has the second highest number of individual donors at 164. Sean Ryan takes this neighborhood, with 92 donors compared to Scanlon’s 63, Garnell Whitfield’s six and Rasheed Wyatt’s three.
4) Fourteen neighborhoods have fewer than 10 individual donors. The MLK Park and Black Rock neighborhoods have just one donor each.
5) Scanlon is the only candidate to have donors in Black Rock, Ellicott, MLK Park, Lovejoy, Kaisertown and the Hopkins-Tifft neighborhoods.
6) Ryan, Scanlon and Whitfield have one donor each in the Seneca-Babcock neighborhood, leading to a three-way tie.
7) Wyatt leads in two neighborhoods that lie within his Buffalo Common Council University District: Kenfield and Kensington-Bailey.
Breakdown and analysis
Buffalo Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon has both the most individual donors and amount of money raised overall, within and outside the city.
And it perhaps comes as no surprise that in the city, he dominates in South Buffalo, while Sean Ryan takes the Elmwood Village, with both candidates representing those areas in their respective roles as South District common councilmember and state senator.
But there are some notable findings for Clinical Professor of Political Science at the University at Buffalo, Shawn Donahue.
“One thing that surprises me a little bit is that there are some areas in Senator Ryan's state Senate district, kind of on the west and north side of the city of Buffalo, where Mayor Scanlon has an edge.”
Rasheed Wyatt leads in the Kensington-Bailey and Kenfield neighborhoods located in the Buffalo Common Council's University District - an area he has represented since 2014.
But Donahue points out that Scanlon takes the others: University Heights, and Central Park.
And Scanlon’s lead in individual donors extends to the majority of the city’s neighborhoods.
Professor Laurie Buonanno, who teaches New York State government at Buffalo State, said that’s because though city employees are usually concentrated in South Buffalo, many live “all over” the city. Scanlon has secured endorsements from both the police and fire unions, whose approximately 1,500 members mostly live within city limits.
“Of course, if you're in City Hall, you're supporting Scanlon. I mean, city unions are for Scanlon, and that should be expected, so he does have the incumbency advantage,” Buonanno asserted.
Ryan has raised significantly less from all individual donors compared to Scanlon, with the acting mayor clocking in $720,253 to Ryan’s $296,629.
Donahue believes that might indicate that Ryan is not prioritizing individual donations.
“The fact is, he's able to bring over some of his fundraising that he had for the state Senate,” he said.
Indeed, Ryan's campaign finance filings show $300k was transferred from the Ryan for Senate campaign committee to the Sean Ryan for Buffalo campaign committee in February.
But for all the talk about money, Buonanno warns that campaign finances are not a “proxy” for a public opinion poll, nor can they solely predict who will win the Democratic primary, especially since 14 city neighborhoods have fewer than 10 donors.
"Sure money is important. It buys signs, but signs don't vote," she said.
“This is to me, this is a boots on the ground campaign. The money can help us somewhat understand that Scanlon has that advantage. He seems to be creating more interest among individuals, but ultimately, it's who's going to go and get Democratic voters out to the polls?”
How we did it
The data source was the NYS Board of Elections campaign finance contributions by recipient for each candidate.
Neighborhood boundaries and names are defined by the City of Buffalo as sourced at OpenData Buffalo.
The campaign finance data was extracted starting at various dates for each candidate's campaign committee based on when one could reasonably assume that candidate would run for mayor.
For Ryan, Tyson-Thompson and Whitfield, the data was pulled starting the date their mayoral campaign committees were registered with the New York State Board of Elections, as follows:
Ryan: Sean Ryan for Buffalo. Campaign committee registered November 29, 2024.
Tyson Thompson: Friends of Tyson Thompson. Campaign committee registered March 3, 2025.
Whitfield: Friends of Garnell Whitfield. Campaign committee registered October 8, 2024.
Scanlon and Wyatt already have established committees registered for use within the county. In Scanlon’s case, the data was pulled starting the day he assumed office as acting mayor on October 15, 2024. For Wyatt, it is the date he declared his candidacy on December 10, 2024.
All data visualizations by Alyssa Brouillet.
