Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The sprint is on to June 24 and the race for Mayor in the City of Buffalo.
The top-two contenders, Chris Scanlon and Sean Ryan, each have about half a million dollars in the bank, as well as organization.
"Ryan has the Erie County Democratic Committee. Scanlon has a group of people who helped Byron Brown win a write-in campaign four years ago," said political analyst Ken Kruly, of Politics and Stuff with WBEN on Monday.
With the petition process getting underway, Kruly expects that by April, there will probably be three or four candidates running for the seat.
Ryan received the endorsement of local Democrats over the weekend.
How much weight does that carry heading into the Primary?
"The value of the endorsement is that you have the party organization
with you and you have committee members who will go out and do petitions.
You also have the financial resources of the party to a certain extent.
There are advantages, but at the end of the day, the June Primary is going to be the thing that is going to decide everything and that's still an open question," Kruly noted.
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Garnell Whitfield opened his campaign headquarters on Sunday, the day after
the Democratic committee endorsement. A clear indication, Kruly said, that he's intending to run.
"He has name recognition from his former role as the fire commissioner.
He has a very small campaign treasury as of mid-January. I can't speak to organization, in terms of getting petitions out, but opening up a headquarters is a sign that he's moving ahead with a campaign," Kruly said.
It all comes down to who can get the vote out.
Primary election participation is consistently lower than general election turnout. Kruly has looked at the last five primaries for mayor. Turnout was about 30,000 Democrats, which is about 30% of registered Democrats.
Scanlon has been elected to the Common Council from South Buffalo, which has about 11% of the city population. Ryan is a state senator, and his district includes about 26% of the electorate in the city.
Kruly added that Ryan has the advantage, but added Scanlon is Acting Mayor, which offers him more exposure.
"It's going to be a real horse race with finances," he said.
Kruly expects both Scanlon and Ryan will end up raising another half million dollars between now and June 24, making them both "very competitive."