Buffalo mayoral election, 2013
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The 2013 election for Mayor of Buffalo, New York took place on November 5, 2013. Two-term incumbent Mayor Byron Brown, a Democrat, faced Republican challenger Sergio Rodriguez.
The 2013 Buffalo mayoral race is notable as the first mayoral election in Buffalo's history to not feature any white, non-Hispanic candidates in either the primary or the general elections. A Buffalo News editorial noted that despite the historic racial aspect of the election, Buffalo voters that year tended to be more concerned with traditional issues such as crime and education, in sharp contrast to the deep ethnic divisions that have normally characterized city politics.
Brown was challenged in the Democratic primary by Bernard Tolbert, the former Special Agent-in-Charge of Buffalo's FBI field office, the former Vice-President of Security for the National Basketball Association, and a former executive with the Coca-Cola Company.
Rodriguez, a 32-year-old, Dominican-bornMarine Corps veteran, small business owner, and Medaille College administrator, ran unopposed as Buffalo's first Republican mayoral candidate since 2005.
Early in 2013, City Comptroller Mark Schroeder was rumored to be considering a campaign for mayor. However, he declined to run and later endorsed Brown.
Local businessman Matthew Ricchiazzi was reported in June 2013 to be circulating petitions for a possible mayoral campaign. If a Ricchiazzi campaign had actually materialized, it would have touched off a rare Republican primary between him and Rodriguez.
Leading up to the primary elections on September 10, Brown, Tolbert and Rodriguez participated in three televised debates.
The first mayoral debate took place on August 14, 2013 at the Buffalo News auditorium, sponsored by the Buffalo Association of Black Journalists and moderated by Al Vaughters of WIVB-TV. The dominant issue at the first debate was crime, with Rodriguez disputing Brown's assertion that crime has decreased in the city since the previous election; Brown rebutted by calling Rodriguez's statistics "absolutely false" and "nonsense". In addition, both Tolbert and Rodriguez claimed that Buffalo's police department is understaffed and inefficient, with Brown disputing Tolbert's specific claims that there has been a net loss in officers employed by the Buffalo Police since Brown's mayoral tenure began. Other issues that were debated included unemployment, with Brown forced to defend his administration in the face of statistics cited by Rodriguez showing that the unemployment rate in Buffalo rose from 6.3% to 10% during Brown's two terms as mayor, and low graduation rates in the Buffalo Public Schools, with Tolbert calling for more involvement by the mayor's office in the school system and Rodriguez going even further, favoring complete mayoral control of the school board as is the case in New York City and Yonkers, while Brown reaffirmed his commitment to cooperation with the Board of Education but denied he had the authority to directly participate in school-district policymaking.
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