Republican and Democratic voters Tuesday turned away the candidates recommended by their parties' leaders to elect upstarts in the race for Erie County sheriff.
While the county's Republican committee wanted Karen Healy-Case as its sheriff candidate, GOP voters chose John C. Garcia, who survived an onslaught of negative campaigning from the party favorite. Both are Buffalo Police Department retirees now in the private-security business.
And while Democratic Party leaders favored Brian J. Gould, the deputy police chief in Cheektowaga, the voters made Kimberly Beaty the Democratic nominee. The former deputy commissioner for the Buffalo Police Department is now Public Safety director at Canisius College.
She was on her way to grabbing about 50% of the vote in a three-way race, according to unofficial results compiled by the county Board of Elections. Activist Myles L. Carter came in third on the Democratic side.
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Garcia was the candidate favored by departing Sheriff Timothy B. Howard and by the man who ceded the office to Howard in 2005, State Sen. Patrick Gallivan. Garcia's campaign committee spent more than any other candidate in the run-up to the primary, more than $140,000.
Garcia's victory, however, creates an uncomfortable situation for the Republican-Conservative alliance that has helped keep the Sheriff's Office in Republican hands for more than two decades. With Healy-Case holding the Conservative Party line, she and Garcia could split the votes cast by the county's right-leaning residents in November.
As it stands, November's election could become a free-for-all with as many as six candidates. Each candidate who ran in Tuesday's major-party primaries has, at this point, an independent line for November.
Then there's Ted DiNoto. The Amherst police detective is a Republican, but bypassed the Republican primary to run as an independent in November.
The field is running to succeed a Republican sheriff whose four terms coincide with: the escape of an inmate who later killed a state trooper; 31 inmate deaths, including one deemed a homicide blamed on Howard’s staff; a state ranking placing his jails among New York’s worst run; lawsuits from the U.S. Justice Department and the state Commission of Correction seeking more humane conditions; and a recent consent order with the Correction Commission forcing him to better investigate reports of sexual misconduct between staff and inmates.
Despite the issues, Howard consistently won new terms, secured largely by voters in suburban and rural Erie County. In 2013, he won more than 50% of the vote in a three-way race. The Howard campaign successfully shunted his team’s failures into the background by stating that the sheriff would not enforce Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s SAFE Act – landmark legislation that seeks to limit the spread of military-style rifles. With Howard's stance, the election became a referendum on a gun-control measure that remains hugely unpopular in upstate regions, rather than a vote on Howard’s performance.
Seeing the potency of the SAFE Act issue, Healy-Case also had vowed not to enforce the measure if elected sheriff. Garcia presented a more nuanced approach by saying he would not enforce those parts of the act deemed unconstitutional.
Also helping the Republican Howard in his election victories was the tendency of Buffalo’s Democratic voters to stay home in the November election because there was no marquee race in the city to bring them out. Buffalo’s mayoral contests, which occur on the same four-year cycle as the sheriff’s race, tend to be decided by the Democratic primary. That might be the case again this year, but challenger India Walton stunned Mayor Byron W. Brown by grabbing more than 50% of the votes cast. Brown did not concede late Tuesday.
Some wildcards complicate the picture for November. Chief among them is DiNoto's candidacy. Will he take votes from the Republican side or the Democratic? While Gould will appear as an independent, will he campaign? And Beaty's independent nominating petitions are being challenged. Will she lose her independent line?
But now that she has the Democratic line, that may not matter.
