Assembly Member Pat Burke has confirmed that he is seriously considering entering the wide open 2027 race to succeed four-term Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.<\/p>\n
Burke\u2019s interest in the county executive\u2019s office has become well known in Erie County Democratic circles as the South Buffalo native seeks to position himself for the Democratic nomination. Burke said his tenure as an Erie County legislator showed him \u201cthe vehicle\u201d that county government can be.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Democrats were the minority at the time, and I was able to get significant legislation done,\u201d he said of his tenure in the county legislature. \u201cI got the first microbeads plastic ban in the country done through there, one of the first conversion therapy bans in the country done out of there. I was able to get some impactful policy done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burke would be entering what could be the first contested Democratic primary for Erie County executive in two decades. Poloncarz, a former county comptroller, was the Democratic front-runner in the 2011 contest to oppose then-Republican County Executive Chris Collins, particularly after Gov. Kathy Hochul, then the Erie County clerk, chose to successfully seek an open congressional seat.<\/p>\n
Lobbyist Jack O\u2019Donnell said that Burke\u2019s political track record in winning competitive races in South Buffalo and several suburban communities south of Buffalo could translate well in a countywide race.<\/p>\n
\u201cPat has been a winner at all the races he\u2019s run, whether that was county legislature, getting elected to the state Assembly and staying there, even though his last couple races have been close, and he\u2019s had strong challenges,\u201d O\u2019Donnell told City & State. \u201cYou know, Assembly Member Burke has always found a way to come out ahead, and so I think he has to be looked at as a real contender for any countywide office.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burke is far from the only candidate who could enter the race. On the Democratic side, O\u2019Donnell said Deputy County Executive Lisa Chimera, a popular former county legislator from northern Buffalo suburbs, has been discussed as a possible Poloncarz successor, along with Erie County Comptroller Kevin Hardwick, who did not rule out a 2027 county executive run during his successful reelection campaign this year. Hardwick is a former Republican who switched parties several years ago while serving in the county legislature from the northern suburbs of Buffalo. Hardwick is also a longtime political science professor at Canisius University.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe went out of his way to not say that he was a candidate, but that he wouldn\u2019t say \u2018no\u2019 to being a candidate,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said of Hardwick.<\/p>\n
On the Republican side, O\u2019Donnell mentioned West Seneca Supervisor Gary Dickson, former Rep. Chris Jacobs and Hamburg Town Board Member-elect Lynne Dixon as potential county executive candidates. Dickson was the Republican congressional nominee in last year\u2019s<\/a> special election against now-Rep. Tim Kennedy, in which Dickson bolstered his name recognition countywide and within GOP circles.<\/p>\n Jacobs, a former Erie County clerk and state senator, served two and a half years in Congress as a moderate Republican before leaving following backlash from conservative Republicans over his support of a federal assault weapons ban<\/a>. The Jacobs family<\/a> is one of the most powerful in the Buffalo region. Dixon, a former TV news reporter in Buffalo and longtime county legislator, was the Republicans\u2019 unsuccessful nominee for county executive in 2019 and county comptroller in 2021. Dixon worked for a year on Jacobs\u2019 congressional staff.<\/p>\n Burke, the Assembly Cities Committee chair, acknowledged that he does not know who will be in the field, but said he believes he can run a competitive campaign for county executive.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s certainly a few people out there. But as far as being an Assembly member and a county legislator of the county that I\u2019ve represented, the amount of media I\u2019ve had, the relationships I\u2019ve built, my accomplishments, I would feel really confident going into that race,\u201d Burke said. \u201cYeah, I feel quite good about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Assembly Member Pat Burke has confirmed that he is seriously considering entering the wide open 2027 race to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[3444,136,138,137,7596,2156],"class_list":["post-49445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-campaigns-elections","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-news-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49445","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=49445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}