Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - While Election Day in two weeks time will be heavily focused on the race for the White House between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, there is an important race locally that will determine the next District Attorney of Erie County.
After John Flynn stepped down from office as District Attorney at the end of March, First Deputy District Attorney Michael Keane took over as the Acting District Attorney, while also receiving the unanimous endorsement of the Erie County Democratic Committee as the party's candidate for District Attorney in 2024.
As for the other option on the ballot for Erie County District Attorney's Office, the Erie County Republican Committee tabbed James Gardner as their candidate to challenge Keane back in February. Gardner runs against Keane after 14-plus years working as a prosecutor in the Erie County District Attorney's Office, as well as a law clerk.
While not much public polling has been done surrounding the two candidate for Erie County District Attorney, Shawn Donahue, assistant political science professor at the University at Buffalo, says one thing both candidates have done plenty of leading up to this November's election has been spending a lot of money in this race.
"I think this is kind of an interesting election, because Keane is kind of a quasi incumbent, because he is serving as the Acting District Attorney. But in a lot of ways, this is kind of more of an open race that we haven't had in a while," said Donahue in an interview with WBEN. "We're seeing that both candidates are touting their experience and they are tough on crime, which is some issues that have come up in New York in the past few elections, whether they'd be at the statewide level like we saw in the governor's race, and numerous county and local races across the state in the past few cycles."
One of the things that remains to be seen, from Donahue's perspective, surrounds a sealed record of an incident that Keane had many years ago. Garnder has used that incident back in 1985 as part of his attack campaigns against Keane.
"How did that actually come out when it was not supposed to be released? That's something I'll be interested to see which way that goes, because sometimes where people think that something is a dirty trick or potentially out of bounds, it sometimes can go against kind of the side that was putting it out, rather than having their intended effect of trying to tear down the other candidate," Donahue noted.
For decades in Erie County, the District Attorney's Office has been held by a Democratic candidate. Donahue feels it'll be quite the longshot for Gardner to be able to swing the vote in favor of Republicans, especially in a year that also sees the Presidential Election taking place.
"Democratic candidates for president have carried Erie County for every election for a long, long time. So having this election in the same year as a presidential election, where Kamala Harris is likely to defeat Donald Trump by a pretty wide margin, would have the effect of helping Keane and probably disadvantaging Gardner in the race," Donahue explained. "It would require a lot of people that were voting Democratic at the top of the ticket for President and the U.S. Senate, at least in the 26th district for Congress, then asking them to pull the lever for a Republican after they voted Democratic for the first few elections. It's been exceedingly hard for Republicans to win countywide elections in Erie County when they are the same year as the presidential election."
Donahue adds that people just aren't splitting their tickets that much, which does not bode well for Gardner in his bid for the District Attorney's Office.
"In a local election, maybe if you have the party that is kind of disadvantaged in terms of how the county usually votes at the top of the ticket, maybe if they have an incumbency advantage or a well-known name, sometimes they can overcome that. But it's just becoming harder-and-harder to get that type of ticket splitting. We do get it in Erie County, where Republicans are able to win some countywide elections, but it turns out they tend to do better in non-presidential elections for these type of races."
Where Donahue believes Keane has been doing well is putting his stamp on the "tough on crime" angle, one that Republicans in the past few cycles have been extremely critical of Democrats for.
"He has been able to get a lot of endorsements by police organizations. Not from the actual departments, but from the PBAs and police clubs, that I think Kane is hoping that's going to make it a lot harder to paint him as a soft on crime person," Donahue explained. "We see that Gardner is trying to run on these themes, where he has in one of his ads that he's going to end cashless bail, which he doesn't have the ability to do as a district attorney. It's something that the legislature and the governor have to do. But I think you're seeing Gardner is trying to play on some of those same things that Republicans saw Lee Zeldin able to do much better than the average Republican has for governor in the last 20 years."
Keane and Gardner will further discuss their talking points for the District Attorney's Office this coming Thursday when they take part in the annual St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute's political debate.