June 23, 2021

India Walton, Socialist and Former Nurse, Is Set to Become Buffalo’s First Female Mayor

“I won! Mommy, I’m the mayor of Buffalo!”

India Walton Campaign

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In what’s shaping up to be a stunning upset, India Walton, a socialist candidate running her first political campaign in Buffalo, New York, appears set to defeat four-term incumbent Byron Brown in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Walton has a lead of 1,507 votes.

The 38-year-old progressive challenger is now on track to become the city’s first female mayor and the country’s only socialist mayor of a major US city.

As my colleague Andrea Guzman wrote ahead of the race, Walton, who counts Missouri Democratic Rep. Cori Bush as a role mode, is a lifelong Buffalo resident, a former nurse, and the founding executive director of a local land trust: 

In her first 100 days, Walton has promised to sign a tenant’s bill of rights that would install a tenant advocate and institute rent control. She wants to remove police from responding to most mental health calls. She plans to declare Buffalo a sanctuary city. She would be the first woman to be Buffalo’s mayor. While there are other radical mayors in the United States, Walton would be the only socialist mayor in a major city.

Walton was spotted celebrating as her campaign declared victory late Tuesday. “I won! Mommy, I’m the mayor of Buffalo!” she told her mother in a conversation captured on video and posted to Twitter. On social media, notable progressives including Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York City socialist, congratulated Walton on her likely win.

Brown, who refused even to debate Walton ahead of Tuesday’s election, has yet to concede. For more on the country’s (likely) next socialist mayor, be sure to read Andrea’s insightful piece here.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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