Nov 6
2024
Election results: A rare incumbent loss, lots of no-contests
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There are still some votes to count and results have not been certified, but most of Tuesday’s local races are pretty well resolved.
A few notable results, based on election night numbers:
In the region’s most expensive contest, for Erie County district attorney, Democrat Mike Keane beat deep-pocketed Republican James Gardner by nearly 20 percentage points. Keane has been acting DA since John Flynn stepped down at the end of March to join the Lippes Matthias law firm, making him a quasi-incumbent.
The two candidates spent more than $1 million between them, according to the latest tally by the state Board of Elections. The final cost will be higher. Gardner loaned his campaign more than half the $500,000 he’d spent as of Tuesday.
Gardner’s campaign made much of Keane’s decades-old drunk driving arrest, but neither that nor his attempts to shackle Keane to much vilified bail reform laws enacted by a Democratic governor and state legislature gained much traction among voters.
New York State Sen. Sean Ryan. Photo provided by WKBW.
Local Republicans, like the national party, wagered heavily on being the party of law and order. The local GOP ran four candidates with law enforcement backgrounds against local Democrats for legislative seats. The results were split.
Democratic Assemblyman Pat Burke fended off challenger Marc Priore, an Erie County corrections officer who ran on the Republican and Conservative lines. Burke won by fewer than 800 votes, just under 2 percentage points. His was one of two tight races yesterday.
Priore’s campaign was managed by the brother of Acting Buffalo Mayor Chris Scanlon, a Democrat. Burke lives in Orchard Park now but, like Scanlon, is a South Buffalo native. The two come from competing factions in South Buffalo politics. The resulting tensions may resurface in next year’s mayoral election should Scanlon seek the Democratic nomination in the June primary.
Erie County Legislature Chair April Baskin had a far easier time with Republican Jack Moretti, a retired state trooper, in the race to fill the state Senate seat vacated by Tim Kennedy when he ascended to the U.S. House of Representatives this summer. Baskin won by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.
Two other Republican law enforcement officers fared better.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomPat Chludzinski, a Cheektowaga police lieutenant detective, beat four-term incumbent Assemblywoman Monica Wallace by 4 percentage points, or about 2,300 votes.
It was a big loss for Democrats, not because they’re in danger of losing their majority in the Assembly — there’s no chance of that — but because it’s so rare for an incumbent state legislator to be unseated. In 2022, 95 percent of incumbent legislators were returned to office in New York. In 2020 the number was 97 percent.
Chludzinski’s candidacy probably helped Republican Cheektowaga Town Board candidate Anthony Filipski, a retired Cheektowaga police lieutenant. Filipski beat Democrat Walter Burgett by about 500 votes to fill the seat left vacant when Democrat Brian Nowak was sworn in as town supervisor in January.
Filipski’s win gives Republicans a 4-3 majority on the board, which has been deadlocked all year. The board’s three Republicans in February stalemated Democrats’ efforts to name Burgett to fill Nowak’s seat, gambling they had a better chance of winning an open race in the general election. The gamble paid off.
Most local elections weren’t as competitive as Filipski’s or Burke’s, thanks to districts drawn to favor one party or another.
State Sen. Sean Ryan, a Democrat, handily won a third term, for example, beating Republican Christine Czarnik by about 23 percentage points. It’s no secret Ryan has been looking beyond this election at next year’s race for Buffalo mayor, but that made little difference to voters in his heavily Democratic district.
At least Ryan had an opponent. Half the 68 local elected seats up for grabs in Erie and Niagara county yesterday were uncontested.
Two local Republican state senators, Rob Ortt and Patrick Gallivan, were unopposed. Voters also had no choice in four Assembly races: Democrats Bill Conrad, Jon Rivera and Crystal Peoples-Stokes were alone on the ballot, as was Republican Stephen Hawley.
Erie County Legislator Lawrence Dupre was also unopposed in the race to complete the term of Howard Johnson, who stepped down in July to take a job with the Erie County Board of Elections. Democrats appointed Dupre to fill the vacancy thus created and then designated him their candidate for yesterday’s race.
No other parties designated a candidate of their own — Republicans rarely bother contesting races in Buffalo-based districts like the one Dupre represents — so the quasi-incumbent got a free ride. He will have to run again next year if he wants a full two-year term.
There were four candidates on the ballot for exactly four state Supreme Court judgeships, thanks to cross-endorsement deals between leaders of the local Democratic and Republican parties.
Likewise, there were three candidates for exactly three spots on Buffalo City Court.
Niagara County District Attorney Brian Seaman had no opponent and neither did Niagara County Sheriff Michael Filicetti. Niagara County Family Court Judge Angela Stamm-Phillips was also unopposed.
Across Erie and Niagara counties, 17 races for town and village positions — town justices, board members, supervisors, and the like — similarly offered no choice for voters, apart from a write-in vote.
That’s 34 elected offices for which there was no competition.
“We have coronations instead of competitive elections,” attorney Paul Wolf, an advocate for electoral reform, told Investigative Post.
“It is hard for challengers to get on the ballot because incumbents are able to utilize patronage employees for their petition signatures and to challenge the petitions of their opponents,” Wolf said.
He also noted that Republicans and Democrats alike draw safe election districts for their party members, further restricting competition.
And finally, he said, there’s the issue of fundraising. That incumbent advantage was somewhat eroded this year by the introduction of a public campaign financing system that matches small donations with public dollars. Chludzinki took full advantage of the new program, qualifying for $174,999 in public matching funds — one dollar less than the maximum available.
“Pay-to-play politics makes it very difficult to match the money that incumbents receive from patronage employees and special interests,” Wolf said. “It is interesting that the very rare instance of a state legislator losing occurred because the successful challenger was assisted by public financing.”
