Moving past the primaries and the mid-year report on political committees’ financials, the 105-day sprint to Election Day begins. Statewide and legislative offices will draw a lot of attention. The one local race with high visibility is the election for Erie County Clerk.
The incumbent, Mickey Kearns, has held the office for 9 years. Kearns is a registered Democrat who has won office on the Republican and Conservative lines. His margins of victory were 7,830 votes in 2017; 4,194 in 2018; and 27,177 in 2022. The year 2018 was a strong year for Democrats, while in 2022 Republicans had the wind behind their backs. Both years were mid-term years where the incumbent president hurt their party’s candidates’ prospects for winning.
2026 is another mid-term year. Once again, the public’s view of the incumbent president is a key factor in the election. Democrats are in a dominant position as we head toward November.
The election for governor will receive the most attention. In her first race for governor in 2022 Kathy Hochul won by a relatively close margin. The public view of the president, Joe Biden, depressed Democratic turnout. This year the Republicans must contend with the drag on their ticket that Donald Trump imposes on them. Bruce Blakeman is a weak candidate for governor who may also be a drag on down ballot races.
County Clerk is the only countywide, non-judicial office on the ballot this year. The Democratic candidate, Steve Meyer, stands to benefit from political issues and hubbub that echoes from Washington.
Meyer, a small business owner, is currently a member of the Williamsville Village Board. He ran for the state Assembly in 2016 against incumbent Republican Ray Walter, losing by 1,414 votes.
As the incumbent, Kearns must explain a record that includes the conviction of a deputy clerk for stealing more than $320,000. The Clerk’s office also had another employee plead guilty to approving a pistol permit for an applicant who was barred from owning guns.
Recent campaign financial filings show Meyer in a strong position. In the six months since January Meyer raised $47,089, loaned his campaign committee $70,000, and spent $3,446. He had cash-on-hand as of July 11 of $113,643. Kearns raised $33,587 since January and spent $14,902. Along with $51,153 raised prior to January Kearns had a cash-on-hand balance of $69,838.
Going back to at least the 1960’s, the only incumbent Erie County Clerk who lost a re-election bid was Republican Robert Grimm. Democrat Jane Starosciak won the office in 1974. That year in politics, of course, was dominated by the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Kearns and Meyer will be working hard on their own campaigns. National and statewide politics, however, can have great influence over local elections this year.
Primary turnouts continue recent trend
The state legislative primary elections in Erie County were both marked by the relatively low turnout of voters. That is a common occurrence in politics these days.
In the 149th Assembly District the total turnout of Democrats in a three-way race was 21.9 percent. The district consists of a portion of Buffalo, one election district in Lackawanna, and the entire Town of Hamburg. The best turnout among those municipalities was in Buffalo (24 percent).
In the 61st Senate District total voter turnout was 20.6 percent. The Senate District consists of a portion of Buffalo plus all of the Towns of Amherst, Grand Island, and Tonawanda and the City of Tonawanda. The Buffalo portion of the district produced 24.9 percent of the total vote.
The winning candidates in those primaries, Adam Bojak in the Assembly District and Jon Rivera in the Senate District, campaigned together in the overlapping Buffalo portions of the Assembly and Senate districts. That certainly worked to both their advantages.
In the Assembly there remains a general election contest. Bojak’s Republican-Conservative opponent is Hamburg Councilmember Frank Bogulski. The district is heavily Democratic by enrollment with more than twice the number of Democrats there compared with the Republicans. More than 27 percent of the registered voters, however, are not affiliated with a party.
In the Senate District, with no Republican candidate, Rivera is basically elected as the next senator with the 10,222 votes he received on primary day. There are 201,548 registered voters in the district.
The voter turnouts in these district primaries were not very good. What might improve those numbers remains to be seen.
Bluesky @kenkruly
Twitter/X @kenkruly
Threads kenkruly
