BUFFALO, NY — Voters in a New York state congressional district will choose between a Democrat seen by many as the natural successor to the longtime congressman who left the seat earlier this year and a Republican who has different appeal in a special election Tuesday.
Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins, who arrived in Congress in 2005, resigned in February to become president of Shea’s Performing Arts Center in Buffalo. With Republicans holding a slim margin in the U.S. House of Representatives, even the race for a seat expected to remain in Democrats’ hands has drawn a lot of attention.
The 26th District race includes state Sen. Timothy Kennedy, a Democrat who views Higgins as a mentor, and Gary Dickson, the first Republican elected as city supervisor in the Buffalo suburb of West Seneca in 50 years.
The district covers Erie and Niagara counties, including the cities of Buffalo and Niagara Falls. Because registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two to one, it is considered a safe seat for Democrats.
Kennedy has been a state lawmaker since 2011 and, like Higgins, is the product of a strong base in South Buffalo. He described Washington as “chaotic and dysfunctional” and said he would focus in Congress on reproductive rights, immigration and stricter gun laws like those passed in New York after the 2022 mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket.
“New York has been a bulwark against Donald Trump’s extremist MAGA agenda, which has infected our politics and our nation’s capital,” he said. “The MAGA extremists have made a laughing stock of the House of Representatives.”
Kennedy enters the race with a huge financial advantage. The Democrat had raised $1.7 million as of April 10, compared to Dickson’s total of $35,430, according to campaign finance reports. Kennedy has spent just over $1 million on the offseason election, compared to $21,000 for Dickson as the candidates work to remind voters to go to the polls.
Dickson, a retired FBI special agent, acknowledged his uphill climb when he announced his candidacy in late February, saying he was running to give voters a choice. He said he supports Trump as the Republican nominee for president, while describing his own politics as “more center-leaning.”
Based on five years at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow while at the FBI, Dickson said he would have voted for the $95 billion foreign package passed by Congress that included aid to Ukraine. He called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “cruel, brutal dictator.”
“If he is not stopped now, he will continue,” he said during a late campaign debate.
Earlier this year, the Republican Party’s narrow majority in the House of Representatives was reduced in a closely contested special election in the Long Island area that followed the expulsion of New York Republican George Santos from Congress. That race, won by Democrat Tom Suozzi, was seen as a test of the parties’ general election strategies on immigration and abortion.
In the 26th District, even a closer-than-expected Democratic victory would say something about the mood of the electorate, said Jacob Neiheisel, an associate professor of political science at the University at Buffalo. He said low turnout could be a sign of lacking enthusiasm.
“If Dickson manages to make this a tighter race than expected, it seems likely that Republicans will herald this as evidence that their party is on the rise,” he said.
The election comes as Trump stands trial in New York City in the first criminal trial of a former US president and the first of four prosecutions against Trump that will go to a jury.
The winner of Tuesday’s special election will serve the rest of the year.
Kennedy is on the ballot for the November general election and faces a June primary against former city supervisor Nate McMurray, a two-term congressional candidate. Attorney Anthony Marecki is the only Republican candidate who has filed petitions. Dickson did not stand as a candidate in the general election.