Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - While it started as a back-and-forth race in the early goings of Tuesday night's Buffalo Mayoral Primary Election, Sean Ryan ended up pulling away and earning the Democratic nomination on the ballot for mayor this November.
When all was said and done Tuesday, Ryan ended up beating out his four counterparts for the Democratic nomination, including Buffalo's Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon by an 11.26% margin.
Related
While Ryan admits he felt a profound sense of relief following Tuesday's victory, he also felt a great appreciation for the people of the City of Buffalo.
"I'm so happy that my support came from all areas of the City of Buffalo: The West Side, Masten, North Buffalo, Black Rock. I was really happy with the real groundswell of support," said Ryan following his victory at his headquarters along Delaware Avenue.
Ryan felt there were two factors that helped play into his victory in the Democratic primary for Buffalo Mayor on Tuesday.
"One was this universality of opinion that we deserve better - services have been going downhill in the City of Buffalo for a super long time. The second was I'm not involved in city government. I'm involved in state government. I wasn't part of making the problems in City Hall, and I think people trusted somebody with an outside record to come in to fix the problems," Ryan said. "The problems that we acknowledged, but the whole community acknowledged."
But it's not just his recent time in Albany that Ryan feels makes him an ideal candidate to lead the people of Buffalo as mayor.
"I had a full career as a lawyer in the private and the nonprofit field before I ran for office. I brought in that experience, and I took that experience and I brought it into the Assembly, and I took those experiences and brought it into the Senate. Now I'm going to bring all these experiences from my whole lived life into being mayor of the City of Buffalo," he said. "But the State experience is vitally important, because I know what state government funds. I know when cities come to Albany to ask for help - how to ask for it, how the state responds to it.
"We're going to build hundreds-and-hundreds of new homes in Buffalo. We're going to do that because I'm going to take the 'City of Good Neighborhood' plans that we passed in the state for two years, and we're going to put that on steroids to really help build Buffalo and our other upstate cities."
Over the years, Ryan feels the City of Buffalo has developed an ostrich mentality of thinking there are no problems within city government. But as he saw Tuesday and along his campaign trail over the last several weeks, the people have had enough and are ready for change.
"The people know there's problems. I worked as a legislator for almost 13 years, I know the lived experience in the legislator, and I'm gonna be able to work really well with the Buffalo Common Council," Ryan said.
"The No. 1 thing I felt this whole campaign is when I went to doors and started talking about the problems, people just stopped me and they said, 'We know these problems. We've been complaining about them for years. I'm going to vote for you if you're going to fix these problems. You're going to make Buffalo better.' So I think that message is going to resonate all through November."
Over the next few months, Ryan does not intend to change much about his campaign, as he looks to now win the general election this November and secure his seat in the Mayor's Office in City Hall.
"It doesn't matter if you're Republican or Democrat or non-affiliated, you ride over the same potholes, you go through the same neighborhoods that have vacant lots because the houses have been demolished. It's a commonality of the problems. If you live in Buffalo, we're all sharing the same problems," Ryan said. "I'm very optimistic that the message that I've been talking about for the last six months is going to resonate just as well in November as it did in June."
While Ryan hasn't had a chat with all his fellow candidates in the mayoral primary on Tuesday, he said he had a very nice chat with Mayor Scanlon following the results.
"I know he's a Democrat, and I hope that all Democratic elected officials in Buffalo and Erie County join together to work closely with the Democratic nominee," Ryan said.
While Scanlon has said he intends to run this November in the general election, if he had not won the Democratic primary, Ryan is not too worried about the possibility of the Acting Mayor garnering votes from local Republicans or other affiliations.
"I mean, there's a lot of ifs. There's a Republican in the race, there's a Conservative, there's people on write-in campaigns. It could end up being the same thing, a multi-candidate race. But I just went through a multi-candidate race, and I came up with a winning coalition," Ryan noted. "I won in my home turf in the Niagara District, I won in the Delaware District, I won in the University District, I won in the Masten District. So that shows all of Buffalo is coming together around the ideas that I've been putting out."
So how does Ryan continue the momentum of Tuesday's primary victory over the next coming weeks and months leading into November?
"Well, one thing's for sure: I'm turning off my phone tomorrow, I'm going to do my laundry, cut my lawn, say hello to my wife and daughters again. But after that, we're just going to get back on the campaign trail," Ryan joked. "The conversations with the people of the City of Buffalo have been fantastic. I look forward to having more of them. If you want to know what's going on in the City of Buffalo, go knock on 10 doors. They'll tell you what's going on, because the streets don't lie. They'll tell you what's happening in the city."