How a democratic socialist and working-class mother of four nearly won the mayor’s race in New York’s second-biggest city

India Walton upset the status quo in one of the nation’s poorest cities, Alex Woodward reports

Candidate for Buffalo mayor India Walton holds a campaign event the day before election day in Buffalo, New York, 1 November 2021. (REUTERS)

The mayor of New York’s second-largest city has won re-election, and he wasn’t even on the ballot.

Byron Brown, who was first elected mayor of Buffalo in 2005, was defeated in a stunning Democratic primary election this summer by 39-year-old India Walton, who appeared to be on the cusp of being the nation’s first socialist mayor in decades, and the city’s first-ever woman – and first-ever Black woman – to hold the office in Buffalo.

She was the only name on the ballot in the general election on 2 November, and she received endorsements from US Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both senators from the state’s delegation – Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand – and prominent progressives Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.