What Next - A Rust-Belt City Might Elect a Socialist
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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 November 2021
⏱️ 25 minutes
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Summary
India Walton won the Democratic primary for Mayor of Buffalo, New York, in June. Her victory put her on track to become the first socialist mayor in the city’s history, and the first nationwide in more than half a century. The only problem is, her opponent - current mayor Byron Brown - refuses to bow out, and is waging a well-funded write-in campaign in the hopes of keeping his post.
How has a self-styled socialist gotten so close to running Buffalo? And why are some Democrats standing in her way?
Guest: Ross Barkan, a contributing writer to The Nation and the author of The Prince: Andrew Cuomo, Coronavirus, and the Fall of New York.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Back in the spring, Ross Barkan, who writes about New York politics, was busy covering |
| 0:09.2 | the mayoral primary in New York City when sources started coming to him and saying, listen, |
| 0:15.6 | there is this other race you really should be paying attention to. The mayoral primary in Buffalo. |
| 0:23.3 | What I was being told was, look, this is an election where not a great number of people will vote. |
| 0:29.2 | And also it's one where a lot of people tired of the incumbent. |
| 0:32.4 | And Buffalo is changing. |
| 0:33.7 | And Walton is representative of that change. |
| 0:38.3 | India Walton is who Ross is referring to here. |
| 0:42.0 | A mayoral candidate who is a Democratic socialist, a nurse, a teenage mother. |
| 0:47.5 | She stands all of 4'11. |
| 0:49.9 | She was challenging Buffalo's four-term incumbent mayor in the Democratic primary. |
| 0:55.6 | Did you anticipate that Buffalo would be looking at potentially electing a self-described socialist as mayor? |
| 1:05.1 | No, I did not. And part of that is because of the nature of politics in Buffalo where there isn't really a lot of change. |
| 1:14.2 | It's a city that is heavily democratic where the machines have traditionally been strong, where you have very little turnover in terms of who's in power and who leads. |
| 1:27.7 | And Buffalo has only had three mares or so since the 1970s. |
| 1:34.4 | But then, Walton won her primary. |
| 1:37.9 | Jeff, it is electric in here inside the India-Wallon camp. |
| 1:41.9 | Suddenly, the socialist was actually the candidate on the Democratic Party line. |
| 1:46.9 | She is expected to take the podium any moment as a result. |
| 1:51.1 | If you listen to what Walton had to say that night, there's a giddiness you hear and a confidence. |
| 1:57.2 | As the results come in and the people all around her start shouting. |
| 2:02.4 | She stands back and she just beams. |
... |
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