Moves are afoot to make the crowded field in the Erie County sheriff’s race less crowded.
Democrat Brian J. Gould, who had been the Democratic Party’s favorite, pledged his support to the candidate who beat him in the party primary Tuesday, Kimberly Beaty, and will no longer seek the office.
Though Gould will have an independent line on the November ballot, he has stopped campaigning, said Democratic Party Chairman Jeremy Zellner, who said the party organization has united behind Beaty.
Brian Gould, a Democratic candidate for Erie County sheriff, talks with voters outside of the Hamburg Senior Center in Hamburg on Tuesday, June 22, 2021. After losing the Democratic primary, Gould said Wednesday he will not actively campaign for sheriff on an independent ballot line he has in the November general election.
Meanwhile, the third candidate in the Democratic primary, Myles L. Carter, may lose the independent line he arranged for November because of problems with it, said Zellner, who doubles as an Erie County elections commissioner. The county Board of Elections will open a hearing into the challenges to Carter’s independent nominating petition Thursday.
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Over on the Republican side, party headquarters has ramped up an effort to knock independent candidate Ted DiNoto off the November ballot. The Amherst police detective, a registered Republican, bypassed the GOP primary to instead appear on his own independent line in the November election.
Republican Party Chairman Karl Simmeth signed a court challenge attempting to force the Board of Elections to remove DiNoto. The argument: The emblem that adorned DiNoto’s petitions – the outline of the six-star badge worn by a sheriff and deputies – is too similar to the star emblem used by the Democratic Party. Petition signers might have been fooled into thinking DiNoto has Democratic Party support, the court papers say.
DiNoto called a news conference near GOP headquarters on Wednesday to denounce the Republican gambit, which was filed in State Supreme Court on May 31.
“There is no deception here,” DiNoto said, saying the party really wants to help its Republican candidate, deny voters another choice and force him to spend money on a legal defense that will strain his campaign fund.
“This lawsuit is nothing more than another form of voter suppression, designed to eliminate a well-qualified candidate who has followed every rule from inception,” DiNoto said, vowing that he won’t back down.
Right now, two candidates remain in the race on the right side of the ideological spectrum. They are John C. Garcia, who won the Republican primary, and Karen Healy-Case, whom the GOP leadership wanted to win the primary.
Healy-Case still holds the Conservative Party line, putting the Republicans and the Conservatives in a pickle as they try to keep the Sheriff’s Office as a Republican/Conservative possession and enjoy the patronage it offers.
Garcia and Healy-Case could split the vote from the county’s right-leaning residents, making it easier for another candidate to take over.
Unlike Gould on the Democratic side, Healy-Case shows no sign of backing away, even though some commenters on her Facebook page urged her to do so. She issued a statement late Tuesday saying, “I look forward to continuing and winning our fight to defend police on the Conservative line in November.”
She did not congratulate Garcia, the retired Buffalo police detective she consistently attacked and who is favored by incumbent Sheriff Timothy B. Howard, who has opted not to seek a fifth term.
Judging by Tuesday’s outcomes, the leaders of both major parties misjudged their voters. In February, Conservative Party leaders said they would give their line to Healy-Case. The Republicans, who usually work in tandem with the Conservatives, had little choice but to pass over Garcia and endorse Healy-Case.
On the Democratic side, the party leadership endorsed Gould even though a sizable faction within the organization saw Beaty, a former deputy police commissioner in Buffalo and a Black woman, as the better candidate to draw out Democratic voters in November.
The party leaders were trounced. Beaty took more than 50% of the vote in a three-way primary. Garcia beat Healy-Case by 19%.
Howard’s four terms have been marked by 31 inmate deaths, lawsuits from jail regulators seeking more humane conditions, a deputy convicted of brutalizing a defendant and multiple protests about his record.
The protests will continue, and one was organized for late Wednesday by the group called Showing Up for Racial Justice. It called for people to rally against the Howard-endorsed Garcia and Healy-Case outside Republican headquarters on Main Street in downtown Buffalo.
