Even though you might not have any results in the Buffalo mayoral race on election night, you can expect our usual wall-to-wall coverage and analysis from the award-winning WBFO News team Tuesday evening.
“I’ve already joked with our in-studio analysts that while we won’t have as many results to analyze, we will certainly have a lot to talk about,” says WBFO News Director Dave Debo, who once again will helm on-air coverage on election night beginning at 9 p.m.
As in other years, WBFO will have reporters at each of the major party or candidate headquarters.
But in the Buffalo Mayor’s race, we won’t have any of the usual predictive numbers. Incumbent Mayor Byron Brown was denied a spot on the ballot during the primary election in June and is now relegated to run a write-in only challenge of endorsed Democrat India Walton.
Write-in ballots will not be counted for at least a week after election night. Despite that, our coverage will include WBFO reporters at both the Walton and Brown headquarters. Thomas O"Neil White will be with the Democrats, Mike Desmond with the Republicans, Emyle Watkins will be with Mayor Byron Brown, and Thomas will also cover India Walton.
Debo will also once again be joined by WBFO reporters in the field, and will have analysis from Democrat Ken Kruly of PoliticsAndStuff.com, and Republican Warren Galloway, a former Erie County official.
In 2019 and2020, WBFO’s election night coverage with Debo, Kruly, Galloway and our reporting team received “Outstanding Election Night Coverage” honors from the NYS Broadcasters Association.
“We expect to three-peat,” Debo said with a laugh, noting that the idea of having both Republican and Democratic party analysts—and the size of our reporting team-- makes our coverage stand apart from any other WNY radio station.
“No other local station really has our resources or is quite as committed to objective coverage. We are news people- not opinion mongers and that difference puts us ahead,” he says.
We will also have extensive coverage online at WBFO.org , on Twitter @WBFO, and for the first time, our digital coverage will include push notifications to the WBFO app. A live behind-the-scenes webcam will also give a glimpse inside our studios and stream on Facebook.com/wbfonews and also at the WBFO YouTube page.
“I don’t expect to have anything definitive in the Mayor’s race but we will be spotting trends and having results on-air from other races across the region,” Debo says. “There will be enough to keep our entire reporting staff busy.”
Not only will our reporters be roaming across the region to bring you the latest on election night, but they will stay at it into the early hours of the morning preparing comprehensive reports for Wednesday’s Morning Edition.
The races where we do expect to be able to report preliminary results in a more traditional and expected way are:
- Erie County Sheriff: In a race where we will have the traditional election night reporting on results, Democrat Kimberly Beaty, Independent Ted Dinoto, Republican John Garcia, Conservative Karen Healy-Case and are all on the ballot.
- Erie County Comptroller: Republican endorsed candidate Lynn Dixon and Democrat Kevin Hardwick are vying to replace Stefan Mychajliw. Mychajliw is running for Hamburg Town Supervisor against Randy Hoak.
- Amherst Town Supervisor: Incumbent Democrat Brian Kulpa is being challenged by Republican Jay DiPasquale
- Orchard Park Supervisor: Republican Gene Majchrzak and Democrat Daniel Tepelsky
- Erie County Legislature: Every seat is up for election, but not every district has two opponents on the ballot. There are races in the 4th District (Tonawanda), 5th District (Amherst), 6th District (Northern Amherst, Clarence, Newstead), 7th District (western half of Cheektowaga) and 10th District (Elma, Marilla, W. Seneca).
- Chautauqua County Executive: Incumbent Paul “P.J.” Wendel is running against long time elections official Norman Green.
- Propositions: WBFO Albany correspondent Karen DeWitt will join with coverage of the 5 proposals on the ballot across NYS. The state proposals look at legislative redistricting, a constitutional amendment on the right to clean air and water, a proposal to allow voter registration closer to election day, another authorizing widespread use of absentee ballots and a measure changing New York city courts limits on certain claims.
- And lastly, Alden voters will pass judgement on whether to add 2 members to the Town Board for a total of 5.
This year’s coverage will be produced by Bridget Jaipaul-Valenza, our new managing editor hired in September, and also features Disablities Desk Reporter Emyle Watkins who was not part of our coverage in past years.