With flaming firebrand New York Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer endorsing socialist Buffalo mayoral candidate India Walton, what could go wrong?
A lot, according to a new poll.
The snapshot of opinion taken after Schumer backed Walton and as Ocasio-Cortez was in town for a rally to promote her showed that Walton was falling even further behind than a previous poll taken in August.
Walton, a self-described democratic socialist, scored an upset win in Buffalo’s Democratic mayoral primary in June when she defeated incumbent Democrat Byron Brown, who is running a write-in campaign to keep his job.
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A WIVB/Emerson College poll released Tuesday showed that Brown had a nearly 18-point lead over Walton, according to WIVB-TV. The poll, which has a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points, found Brown with 53.8 percent support and Walton at 36.2 percent support.
In August, Brown was leading Walton by 10 points, 50.2 percent to 40.1 percent.
“Considering only 6% of voters are currently undecided right now, Byron Brown has a pretty significant lead in the race that may not be able to be overcome by India Walton,” Emerson College Polling analyst Isabel Holloway said. “Even when we asked those undecided voters who they are leaning towards at this time, they break over two-to-one toward someone else rather than India Walton.”
Walton’s past includes an accusation of welfare fraud and failure to pay taxes, tidbits that were not widely known when she defeated Brown in June, according to WKBW-TV.
Accordingly, the poll found that 51.5 percent of those surveyed had a lower opinion of Walton than when she won the primary.
“Considering that Walton won the Democratic primary, one would expect her to be winning among registered Democrats in the general election,” Holloway said. “However, we found that that is not true. In fact, Byron Brown is leading among registered Democrats. This suggests that Democrats tuned in after the primary election and maybe did not turn out for Byron Brown in the primary but are choosing to do so in the general.”
But regardless of what Buffalo voters might think, the notion of a black socialist woman being elected as mayor of a major city prompted some big-name New York Democrats to line up behind her.
“India is an inspiring community leader, mother, nurse and a lifelong Buffalonian with a clear progressive vision for her hometown,” Schumer said last Thursday in endorsing Walton, according to The Buffalo News.
At the time, Walton said that was the catalyst her campaign needed.
“I think that this endorsement from the senator is going to pop the cork on the potential for other folks to feel like it’s OK to publicly support my candidacy,” she said.
That was followed by a visit from Ocasio-Cortez on Saturday.
“Buffalo is making waves, has been making waves, and I want you to know that the state is watching. And here, around the country, we see what y’all are doing,” the congresswoman said, according to WGRZ-TV.
“Don’t give her a win,” Ocasio-Cortez said, according to the Buffalo News. “Give her a mandate.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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