Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Lindsay Dedario/REUTERS/Jeffrey T Barnes/AP/Shutterstock In October, Byron Brown emerged in the converted post office that had become his campaign headquarters, grinning and shaking hands. In a dark-blue suit and dark-blue tie, a golden buffalo glimmering from his lapel, he looked every bit the incumbent that he was, a political institution cruising to yet another reelection.
Walton’s win made national headlines. As Eric Adams stormed to victory in New York City bashing the left, Walton offered a clear alternative: a Black candidate willing to align, fully, with young progressives and socialists, and someone who had proved an unapologetic activist could win an election in a city of more than 200,000 people.
Competitive general elections are increasingly rare in deep-blue big cities. Republicans are vanishing fast and Democratic primaries are the terrain where ambitious politicians joust for their futures. Buffalo is no different: A Republican hasn’t been mayor of Buffalo since 1965. Such a closing of the ranks among Buffalo’s Establishment would not have happened had another longtime council member or state senator defeated Brown. It was Walton, the 39-year-old Bernie Sanders–endorsed democratic socialist, who terrified and angered them most.A mother of four who gave birth to her first child at 14, Walton battled poverty to earn a GED, become a nurse, and eventually rise to become one of Buffalo’s most prominent activists and nonprofit leaders. “India is me.
The congresswoman’s advice? “It’s mostly to remember to take care of myself, it’s mostly to remember to get rest, to be gracious and be forgiving and make sure I keep my values at the center of what I do.” Walton invoked her experience as a nurse. Medical professionals have language they use with each other, but that is not how they might talk to a patient. “We have industry language and we have lay language. A lot of language that we use in progressive circles is industry language and we have to begin using more lay language and being a lot more patient with people when they don’t understand it.”
Paladino’s incendiary attacks on Walton stem, mostly, from local news coverage that has assailed her campaign of late. The Buffalo News, the sole daily newspaper in the city, reported that she was once arrested, in 2014, for “second-degree harassment for physical contact” in a clash with a former co-worker, though Walton denied touching the woman.
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