Morning Digest: We preview three of next year's top races for mayor
In Boston, Buffalo, and New Orleans, the old guard battles the new
Mayors
With major cities across the county hosting elections for mayor in 2025, The Downballot is previewing a trio of those races in Boston, Buffalo, and New Orleans.
All three cities are heavily Democratic, so unsurprisingly, all of the major contenders identify as Democrats. But as is often the case, these intra-party battles nonetheless feature a variety of fault lines, with a range of different issues dividing opposing camps.
Boston, MA
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's first election in 2021 represented a big win for progressives that resonated well outside of Massachusetts―comedian Stephen Colbert even let out several cheers of "wooooo"―and she's made it clear she's seeking a second term. But a pair of well-connected figures who are both sons of prominent Bay Staters are considering opposing her.
Local political observers have spent the last year wondering whether Josh Kraft, whose father is New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, will enter the race. The younger Kraft, who leads the team's philanthropic organization, has been reluctant to talk about his plans to reporters.
But he wasn't so tightlipped back in July when, according to the Commonwealth Beacon, he discussed his intention to run with a friend at a local coffee shop. According to a fellow customer, the would-be candidate said he would be "announcing in the fall." (The season officially ends on Dec. 21.) A spokesperson for Kraft, though, denied he has any "plans or timeline for any kind of an announcement."
City Councilor Ed Flynn, meanwhile, is also eyeing the post that his father, Raymond Flynn, held from 1984 to 1993. Flynn, a prominent moderate on the Council, wouldn't commit to anything this month even as WBZ host Jon Keller urged him to clarify his intentions by saying it was time to "fish or cut bait."
"Whether I'm on the city council or I run for higher office, I want to be part of the solution," said Flynn, who went on to fault Wu's handling of crime, taxes, and other issues.
All of the candidates will face off in September in an officially nonpartisan primary, known locally as the "preliminary election," with the two highest vote-getters advancing to the November general election. Unlike many other municipalities, though, Boston does not allow candidates to avoid a second round of voting if they win a majority in the first round.
Buffalo, NY
Buffalo just got its first new mayor in almost two decades, and it could see yet another one win office next year.
After 19-year-incumbent Byron Brown resigned to head western New York's state-run gambling agency in October, Christopher Scanlon, the president of Buffalo's Common Council, became acting mayor.
Scanlon, who led the local equivalent of a city council, has not yet announced whether he'll run in the June Democratic primary to keep his new job, but he hinted at a bid with a swearing-in ceremony that the Buffalo News' Justin Sondel called "more campaign event than official government act."
Other Buffalo politicians, however, are not deferring to Scanlon, including state Sen. Sean Ryan and former city Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield, who've both announced campaigns since Brown's exit. Common Council Member Rasheed Wyatt, likewise, says he'll launch his campaign today.
Ryan used his November kickoff to argue that New York's second-largest city badly needs change after Brown's long tenure. Ryan faulted the ex-mayor for leaving behind a large budget deficit but also blamed Scanlon for the problem, charging that he "rubber-stamp[ed] Byron Brown budgets for a decade."
Whitfield launched his own effort shortly after Thanksgiving by saying that as a first-time candidate, he'd provide a "different kind of leadership." Whitfield's mother was one of the 10 Black people murdered by a white supremacist in the 2022 mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, spurring him to become a prominent gun safety activist following the tragedy.
Wyatt, for his part, has made a name for himself as a critic of both Brown and Scanlon. Wyatt endorsed activist India Walton against Brown in the 2021 Democratic primary, and he was the one member of the nine-person Common Council to vote against making Scanlon its president earlier this year.
The field could yet grow further. Other members of the Common Council―including Zeneta Everhart and Leah Halton-Pope―have talked about getting in as well.
Former Judge James McLeod, meanwhile, attended a candidate screening event on Thursday hosted by the Erie County Democratic Party, which says it will decide in late February who to endorse. Scanlon, Ryan, Whitfield, and three lesser-known names also spoke to committee members. Wyatt did not participate.
One person who doesn't seem likely to join the race, though, is Walton, who defeated Brown in the 2021 Democratic primary only for the mayor to wage a successful write-in campaign in the general election. While Walton tweeted in August that she believed "maybe I could beat" Scanlon, she responded to Whitfield's launch with praise.
It only takes a simple plurality to win the Democratic primary, a contest that―with the notable exception of 2021―is almost always the only election that matters in dark-blue Buffalo.
New Orleans, LA
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is under federal investigation, but she'll be out of office no matter what by early 2026 thanks to term-limits laws that bar her from running a third term. That means the Big Easy is likely to host a wide-open and potentially crowded race to succeed her.
No big names have announced they're in yet, though two members of the City Council have signaled they're likely to run.
Helena Moreno, who serves as the body's president, took a key step toward a bid when she set up a campaign account in August: Moreno, who was born in Mexico, would be the first Hispanic person to lead majority-Black New Orleans. Oliver Thomas, meanwhile, told Axios in October he'd made up his mind about his plans but would only divulge them "at the appropriate time."
The two would-be rivals may already be more familiar to voters than your typical city councilmember thanks to the amount of time they've spent on TV—though in very different contexts.
Moreno was a TV anchor for the local NBC affiliate in the early 2000s and was part of the team that won an Emmy for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina. She attempted to switch careers in 2008 when she waged an unsuccessful challenge against Democratic Rep. Bill Jefferson, who was convicted on corruption charges the following year. Moreno bounced back in 2010 when she prevailed in a special election to the state House, and she decisively won a citywide seat on the Council seven years later.
Thomas, for his part, was a prominent member of the City Council in the 2000s and seemed to have a compelling future ahead of him. Thomas, who is Black, enjoyed a strong base of support among both African American and white voters, and he looked like an early frontrunner to become mayor in 2010.
That campaign never took place, though, because Thomas pled guilty to bribery in 2007. After he left prison in 2010, he went on to star in a play about the scandal that brought him down, a performance that drew the attention of "The Wire" creator David Simon.
Simon cast the former councilman to portray himself on the HBO show "Treme," an experience that included a scene showing Thomas accepting a bribe. Thomas continued his new career in media by becoming a local radio host, a role he continued even after winning back a seat on the City Council in 2021.
Two other local pols, state Sen. Royce Duplessis and former Judge Arthur Hunter, have also expressed interest, and there's still plenty of time for more names to surface. All candidates will run together on a single ballot on Oct. 11, with the top two vote-getters advancing to a Nov. 15 runoff if no one wins a majority.
House
FL-01, FL-06
Candidate filing closed Friday for the special election to replace former Rep. Matt Gaetz in Florida's 1st District, while the deadline passed the next day for the contest to replace Rep. Mike Waltz in the 6th.
Donald Trump's decision to back state Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis in the 1st and state Sen. Randy Fine in the 6th helped persuade several other big names to either drop out or not run at all, and no major candidates decided to test their luck by launching a last-second run. One person who did, though, is Navy veteran Aaron Dimmock, who lost the primary to Gaetz back in August by a lopsided 73-27 margin.
Altogether 10 Republicans are campaigning for the 1st District, while three are seeking the 6th. Patronis' main intraparty rival appears to be state Rep. Joel Rudman, while Fine faces a pair of little-known opponents.
The primaries for both of these deep red seats will take place on Jan. 28, while the general elections are set for April 1.
DCCC, NRCC
Both parties' official House campaign arms will battle it out in 2026 under the same leadership that went head-to-head this year: Democrats announced on Friday that Washington Rep. Suzan DelBene would once again head the DCCC, while Republicans tapped North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson for another turn at the NRCC last month.
Judges
MS Supreme Court
On Friday evening, 10 days after a hotly contested runoff for the Mississippi Supreme Court, the AP called the race for Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning, who has unseated moderate Justice Jim Kitchens. While the AP's tally still shows 1% of precincts not reporting, the current numbers have Branning ahead 50.6 to 49.4, a difference of 1,440 votes.
Mayors & County Leaders
East Baton Rouge Parish, LA Mayor-President
Republicans scored a surprise victory in Saturday's runoff to lead Louisiana's largest parish when high school football coach Sid Edwards unseated Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome 54-46. Edwards will be the first Republican in 20 years to run East Baton Rouge Parish, which is home to the state capital of Baton Rouge and several of its suburbs.
Local observers went into the Nov. 5 general election anticipating that the runoff would be a battle between Broome and a fellow Democrat, former Biden administration official Ted James. (In Louisiana, parishes are the equivalent of counties. The unusual title of "mayor-president" refers to the fact that its holder is both the mayor of the city of Baton Rouge and the president of the parish, thanks to the consolidation of governmental units.)
Edwards, though, unexpectedly took first last month with 34%, while Broome outpaced James 31-29 for second. James backed Broome in the runoff while Edwards focused on crime and saw an influx of financial support from the state GOP. The two Democrats collectively took 60% in a parish that Kamala Harris carried 54-43, but Edwards benefited from considerably lower turnout for the runoff.
Two days before the November election, a rogue team of campaign organizers for Vice President Kamala Harris turned a Dunkin’ Donuts in Philadelphia into their secret headquarters.
Their mission was simple: Knock on the doors of as many Black and Latino voters as they could in neighborhoods that they believed the Harris campaign had neglected in its get-out-the-vote-operation. And they could not let their bosses find out.
. . . .
Campaign organizers in Philadelphia said they were told not to engage in the bread-and-butter tasks of getting out the vote in Black and Latino neighborhoods, such as attending community events, registering new voters, building relationships with local leaders and calling voters.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/us/politics/harris-philadelphia-black-latino-voters.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
I would tend to cut the Harris campaign some slack here only because of the late start of the campaign.
I'm on the other side of the river, so my read on the situation could be off, but I don't think either the scion of the Patriots or the councilor for Southie would pose much of a threat to Wu.. This isn't Raymond Flynn's Boston, where an economic populist / cultural conservative was a good fit. Nor does his son have his reputation for going after monied interests. (The elder Flynn went after banks, utility companies and landlords, both as councilor and as mayor.) Both men read to me as the right of center disgruntledness that lost in a landslide in the 2021 race and don't have a constituency or a platform that reaches the broader city of Boston. (This is somewhat unfair to Essaibi George, who was more going for "pragmatic centrist", but that's who ended up voting for her.)