{"id":164420,"date":"2026-04-13T11:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T11:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/164420\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T11:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T11:44:11","slug":"erie-county-democrats-select-leah-halton-pope-for-141st-assembly-district-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/164420\/","title":{"rendered":"Erie County Democrats select Leah Halton-Pope for 141st Assembly District race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Halton-Pope currently represents the Ellicott District and previously served in longtime Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes&#8217; office.<\/p>\n<p>BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 Buffalo Common Council Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope will officially be the Democratic candidate for the 141st Assembly District in November.<\/p>\n<p>The Erie County Democratic Committee on Sunday announced that Halton-Pope has been selected to fill the vacancy on the ballot. She will replace longtime Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wgrz.com\/article\/news\/politics\/majority-leader-crystal-peoples-stokes-not-seeking-reelection\/71-c6ea22a5-594c-4736-b9c6-65c96d4fc2bf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">who last week announced her retirement<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Halton-Pope currently represents the Ellicott District and previously served in Peoples-Stokes&#8217; office.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have said that Crystal Peoples-Stokes is both a great leader and true institution who never put politics before the interests of the people,&#8221; Halton-Pope said in a statement issued Sunday evening. &#8220;Working in her office was a rare privilege that provided the foundation for what I have achieved on the Common Council and what I hope to accomplish for the 141st Assembly District.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am grateful to the committee and to the party for their support, and honored and humbled by their faith in me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wgrz.com\/article\/news\/politics\/peoples-stokes-decision-riggers-party-vacancy-selection-process\/71-e2d01369-adfc-49d6-bfc7-07d1cacac47f\" class=\"cms__embed-related-story__link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Decision by Peoples-Stokes triggers party vacancy selection process<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Peoples-Stokes was first elected to the NYS Assembly in 2003, and was named Majority Leader in 2018. Prior to her election to the Assembly, Peoples-Stokes served as an Erie County Legislator between 1993 and 2002.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Erie County Democratic Committee chair and and New York State Senator Jeremy Zellner said Halton-Pope was the right person for the seat.<\/p>\n<p>A new Democratic nominee had to be selected by the party\u2019s vacancy committee by April 14, the last day to file authorization of substitution after a candidate declines, according to the New York State Board of Elections 2026 Political Calendar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Halton-Pope currently represents the Ellicott District and previously served in longtime Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes&#8217; office. BUFFALO,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-164420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}