Tag: Politics

Oct 13

2021

The keys to a successful write-in campaign

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Successful write-in campaigns for elected office are few and far between. But candidates occasionally find a way to win, and election experts say there is a formula for success. The keys include name recognition, fundraising capability, concerted voter education campaigns, and strong turn-out-the-vote efforts. Lisa Murkowski used these strategies to retain her U.S. Senate seat in Alaska in 2010. Mike Duggan did likewise when he won the race for mayor of Detroit in 2013. Here in Buffalo, Mayor Byron Brown, waging a write-in campaign against Democratic nominee India Walton, has at least some of those advantages going for him. As[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 5

2021

Big donors to Brown and Walton

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Byron Brown’s usual cast of campaign donors are digging deep to support his write-in campaign for mayor, showering the four-term incumbent with $851,000 since he lost the Democratic primary on June 22 to India Walton. Brown’s donors include developers and other companies who do business with the city and patronage employees who depend on the mayor for a paycheck. A number of noteworthy Republicans have also donated significant sums. In many cases, support for Brown is a family affair.  For example, four Nanulas — Anthony, Paul, Philip, and Steven — chipped in $25,000 between them. Anthony Nanula is a former[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 2

2021

Campaign Notes

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Welcome to Campaign Notes, an election blog we update daily with news and intelligence on upcoming elections, including the mayoral race. Geoff Kelly, our government and politics reporter, writes most of the entries, with contributions from other Investigative Post reporters. Email Geoff with tips. Thursday, Nov. 4, 11:50 a.m. Heaney assesses election with with Susan Arbetter How to explain Byron Brown’s landslide victory over India Walton? Susan Arbetter, host of Capital Tonight, put that question to Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney and here’s what he had to say: Investigative Post, in a previous story, identified four key strategies successful write-in candidates[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Aug 20

2021

The Brown-Paladino connection

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Mayor Byron Brown has said that he doesn’t want controversial developer Carl Paladino’s support for his write-in campaign against Democratic primary winner India Walton.  While fielding questions from reporters following his June 28 announcement that he would stage a write-in campaign, Brown encouraged reporters to research the subject because they would find that he and Paladino “are not close.” In fact, the two have fashioned a working, if not warm, relationship over the years.  Paladino is close enough to the mayor that he confirmed to a WGRZ reporter that he spoke with Brown by telephone shortly after his primary defeat[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 28

2021

Mychajliw’s faulty campaign filing

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On Monday, Erie County’s lame-duck comptroller, Stefan Mychajliw, finally submitted a July campaign finance disclosure filing to the New York State Board of Elections. There are some problems, as there often are with Mychajliw’s campaign finances. First, this filing — one of two required annually of all candidates for elected office — arrived 11 days late. Second, the filing was for the campaign committee he used to run for comptroller, when in fact he is running for supervisor of the Town of Hamburg. That’s against the law: You can’t collect money for one office and use the money to run[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 19

2021

Brown campaign still violating election law

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After a delay his campaign attributed to “technical difficulties,” Mayor Byron Brown’s July campaign finance disclosure was posted to the New York State Board of Elections website on Saturday. Here’s what the filing revealed: After a flood of donations received the week before the June 22 primary, the mayor’s fundraising has been anemic compared to that of India Walton, who beat him to win the Democratic Party line in the November general election. As previously reported, Brown’s campaign continues to rely on donations from City Hall employees, patronage hires, city vendors, big real estate developers and a variety of well-to-do[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jul 16

2021

Surge in donations for Walton after win

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Considering the odds against her, India Walton’s fundraising was pretty good prior to last month’s Democratic primary. It’s gotten a lot better since. Walton’s campaign raised nearly $178,000 in the three weeks after she beat incumbent Byron Brown in the Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo, according to her campaign’s July 15 filing with the New York State Board of Elections. That’s more than she raised in the six months leading up to the June 22 election. And the total amount she raised in the current reporting period — just shy of $199,000 over the past 33 days — surpasses[...]

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post