Mascia: “Byron Brown has secretly accepted the Republican endorsement for Mayor”

According to former City Housing Commissioner Joe Mascia, the embattled Mayor Byron Brown — who lost his own party’s nomination to Democrat India Walton earlier this year — has been “secretly endorsed” by the Erie County Republican Party. Mascia has witnessed local Republican officials organizing Brown’s campaign and steering donations to the four-term incumbent amid ongoing FBI investigations of his administration.

The move could backfire on Brown, who is relying heavily on his traditional base of support in the Masten District, a higher-end majority-African American council district that typically enjoys the City’s highest voter turnout.  While many Black Republicans in the Masten District might embrace such a party switch, it’s unlikely that voters in Buffalo’s poorer majority-African American council districts will leave the Democratic Party line.

Mayor Brown, a longtime career politician who spent many years on the Buffalo City Council and in the State Senate, lost his bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination soundly to India Walton, a progressive activist with the backing of the Working Families Party.  Walton was aggressively outspent in that primary contest but defeated Brown by more than 10 percentage points.

Brown remains deeply unpopular west of Main Street and his support in the City’s poorest districts — Fillmore and Ellicott — where voters feel ignored by the Brown Administration, is sparse.  Now that Brown is overtly organizing with the Republicans, it could alienate him from the City’s most marginalized neighborhoods, which have suffered most from urban disinvestment, deindustrialization, and dilapidated infrastructure.

“Interesting afternoon for Lori and I.  [We] attended a meet and greet sponsored by a personal friend. It was for several Republican candidates running for county-wide races. The interesting part is when the Republican Director of Parking Violation [Kevin Helfer] appointed by Mayor Brown gave a demonstration to the Republicans in attendance how to write in or stamp the name of Byron Brown because he has no line!” Mascia explained in a statement circulating on social media.

Former Republican gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino is organizing the City’s real estate and business communities around Brown’s write-in campaign. Wealthy developers and those doing business with the City have poured $800,000 into Brown’s last-ditch reelection effort.

“Why are these Republicans — including the city chairman — endorsing a Democrat who didn’t seriously campaign in a primary and lost?  Why didn’t the Republican Party run a candidate, what’s in it for them anyway?” Mascia postulates.  “Are Brown and his supporters this desperate?”

Mascia believes Brown is now concealing his relationships with the Republican Party — which local political operatives have long described as “deep and penetrating.”  The revelation could sink Brown’s reelection effort, he explains.

Sources say that Brown is now accepting “tactical campaign support” from Sheriff candidate John Garcia, who has been endorsed by the Republican and Conservative Parties. Some Democrat operatives see the relationship between Brown and Garcia as a betrayal of Democrat nominee for Sheriff Kim Beaty, whom Brown ostensibly supports.

“Got to admit Byron is smart. If he takes the Republican line with only 8,000 Republicans in the City, no Democrat will vote for him, so he does a back door deal with the Republican Party not to offend the City Democrats,” Mascia explains.

“I even got a glimpse of the stamp for voters who can’t spell Brown,” he adds.

Brown’s detractors have been mocking his suspected “covert switch” to the Republican Party on social media with a slew of political memes. 

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1 Comment

  1. As A Republican and there We never said we were backing anyone Joe Marsha was a loud mouth looking for something from others very rude. Trying to cover himself We all are able to vote for whomever we feel fit the position.

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