Soares could use Buffalo as a model for his recruiting campaign

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Albany County District Attorney David Soares won’t be on the ballot in November, but the incumbent has high hopes anyway.

“The party leaders have deregistered me, but the people of Albany County are going to register me,” he said.

Soares made the announcement three weeks after losing a Democratic primary to Lee Kindlon. Democratic political analyst Jack O’Donnell of O’Donnell & Associates said the mail-in voting campaigns are unusual.

“The bigger the audience, the bigger the electorate, the rarer it is,” he said.

Soares, however, can look west to Buffalo, where longtime incumbent Mayor Byron Brown similarly lost a 2021 primary and then mounted a successful registration drive.

“I think what Byron Brown did inspired other people and helped David Soares think that maybe he had a chance to do it,” O’Donnell said.

Soares believes he is a candidate around whom voters across the political spectrum can rally, as he plans to focus on his philosophical opposition to state laws that limit prosecution of juveniles and judges’ discretion in detention and bail.

“I am a loyal and faithful Democrat, but my party has decided to impose the most reckless laws, what I call legislative malfeasance, public safety laws that have endangered the black and brown community more than any other community,” he said.

O’Donnell said there are a number of circumstantial differences between the Buffalo and Albany county elections, chief among them the number of candidates. He said moderate Brown easily compares to avowed democratic socialist India Walton.

Soares may be using the same strategy, but in this case he has to his political right a Republican candidate, Ralph Ambrosio.

“I think a lot of those people are just going to go back to whoever is listening to them. That’s what we see a lot in politics these days. Party affiliation, where you come from, is stronger among front-line voters in many ways than it’s ever been,” he said.

O’Donnell said Soares’ success may depend on how much money he raises and how well he educates voters about how mail-in voting campaigns work, two areas where he said Brown has done well. The analyst noted that while leading Albany Democrats have voiced opposition to Soares’ campaign, Brown has received strong support from a number of sitting members of the City Council.