BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Voters in an upstate New York congressional district will choose between a Democrat seen by many as the natural successor to the longtime congressman who left his seat earlier this year and a Republican with crossover appeal in a Tuesday special election.
Democratic Representative. Brian Higginsarrived in Congress in 2005, resigned in February to become president of Shea’s Performing Arts Center in Buffalo. With Republicans holding a narrow margin in the House of Representatives, even a race for a seat expected to remain in Democratic hands has drawn its share of scrutiny.
The race in the 26th District features Sen. Timothy Kennedy, a Democrat who considers Higgins a mentor, and Gary Dickson, the first Republican elected city supervisor in the Buffalo suburb of West Seneca in 50 years.
The district spans Erie and Niagara counties, including the cities of Buffalo and Niagara Falls. With registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans more than 2-to-1, this seat is considered a safe seat for Democrats.
A state legislator since 2011, Kennedy, like Higgins, is the product of a strong South Buffalo base. Calling Washington “chaotic and dysfunctional,” he said his focus in Congress would be on reproductive rights, immigration and stricter gun laws, like those passed in New York after the 2022 presidential election. mass shooting in a Buffalo supermarket.
“New York has been a bulwark against Donald Trump’s extremist MAGA agenda that has infected our politics and our nation’s capital,” he said. “MAGA extremists have made the House of Representatives a laughing stock. »
Kennedy enters the race with a huge financial advantage. The Democrat raised $1.7 million on April 10, compared to Dickson’s $35,430, according to campaign finance reports. Kennedy has spent just over $1 million in the off-season election, compared to Dickson’s $21,000, as candidates work to remind voters to go to the polls.
Dickson, a retired FBI special agent, acknowledged his difficult background when he announced his candidacy in late February, saying he was running to give voters a choice. He said he supported Trump as the Republican presidential nominee, while describing his own policies as “more centrally oriented.”
With five years spent at the US Embassy in Moscow with the FBI, Dickson said he would have voted for the A $95 billion foreign package passed by Congress, which included aid to Ukraine. He called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “vicious and brutal dictator.”
“If he is not stopped now, he will continue to advance,” he said during an end-of-campaign debate.
Earlier this year, the Republican Party’s slim majority in the House of Representatives was reduced in a hotly contested region of Long Island. special election which followed the expulsion of New York Republican George Santos from Congress. That race, won by Democrat Tom Suozzi, was seen as a test of the parties’ electoral strategies on immigration and abortion.
In the 26th District, a victory even closer than expected…
