(WBEN) - "It's really a nightmare of a month for the incumbent," says political analyst Carl Calabrese, speaking to allegations that have occurred over the course of this August against Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.
The August accusations began when a woman who was previously in a relationship with Poloncarz filed a Buffalo Police domestic incident report accusing Poloncarz of grabbing and restraining her. Poloncarz has since denied those claims.
Now, another accusation has recently surfaced, reportedly filed by the same woman to Erie County's Board of Ethics, claiming that Poloncarz wrongfully awarded $60,000 in grant money to an organization led by a female who was also, at one point in time, in a relationship with Poloncarz. Poloncarz claimed he did nothing wrong on Wednesday.
These accusations, coupled with the migrant situation currently playing out in the county, has provided an opportunity for Republican challenger for Erie County Executive, Chrissy Casilio, to bolster her campaign.
She has not only held a series of press conferences calling for the incumbent to resign, but has now created a "Mark Poloncarz Whistleblower Hotline" for "people who have endured or witnessed his abuse of power, pressure and bullying" to give an opportunity for people to share their story.
"It's a very clever tactic," comments Calabrese. "All of what has happened this month, has given Chrissy Casilio numerous opportunities to get her name and face in front of the public without spending any money, which is very, very important for a challenger who's going to be outspent probably 10 to 1 in this campaign. It really has maximized her opportunity to get in front of the public without spending dollars and get associated with some issues that, just a month ago, she didn't have. The conventional wisdom was this was a sleeper campaign, there was nothing here. She was just kind of going around faltering in the wind, so to speak. And all of a sudden, in 31 days, we've had not one issue, but three or four issues get layered on the incumbent, not a good way to start the fall campaign season."
While Calabrese believes that it's a good move for Casilio to strike while the iron is hot, the next logical move would be to start laying out the issues of the county and get in-depth into what she would do if she were county executive, especially if there were to be a debate come before election day Nov. 7.
"Eventually she should start talking about what she would do as county executive and how she would address whatever problems she thinks are a priority for the county and contrast that with what she says Mark Poloncarz has not been prioritizing and has not been accomplishing. That will come but again, we've got a couple of months to go and she'll have the opportunity to do that."
