Binghamton mayoral race tests progressive appeal in key swing district

Binghamton residents are heading to the polls this November to elect a mayor, and they have two striking options: a Republican incumbent willing to buck his party on immigration and a progressive Democrat hoping to ride the same wave that led Zohran Mamdani to victory in New York City’s mayoral primary. Mayor Jared Kraham and state Senate staffer Miles Burnett each hope their attention to kitchen table issues can win over a city that faces the same Rust Belt issues as the rest of the country. 

Kraham’s pitch to voters is relatively simple. He’s asking them to let him continue his efforts to make the city safer and more affordable. He’d served as deputy mayor under former Mayor Rich David for more than seven years before replacing his old boss in 2021. 

Burnett, district director for state Sen. Lea Webbs, is touting the possibility of progress, claiming that Kraham is simply a continuation of leadership that has left some residents feeling as though the city is on the decline. Nearly 33% of city residents live below the poverty line, and 47% of metro area residents are rent-burdened. 

Both Kraham and Burnett have their own ideas about how to tackle housing, which is often a resident’s largest monthly expense, with Burnett pushing to restart an initiative to track vacant properties with the possibility of bringing them back online and Kraham looking to incentivize housing construction and make adjustments to the zoning code. Kraham and the Common Council are often at odds over the scale and methods to do so, with the council recently pushing back against Kraham’s funding plans for the fire department, claiming that money would be better spent on affordable housing. The council also overrode Kraham’s veto of “good cause” eviction protections earlier this year. 

“So to me, I said building a better Binghamton for everyone, and the word ‘build’ is in there on purpose,” Burnett told City & State, “because that's what we need to be doing as a city is really building more affordable, safe, permanent housing for folks, so that people can get out of the shelters and find a place to live, so that people who have grown up here their whole life have a place to call home and don't have to leave for opportunities elsewhere.”

Though it’s not the most salient issue to some voters, given the city’s population makeup, Kraham is an outlier within his party when it comes to immigration enforcement. He has no plans to let local law enforcement directly collaborate with ICE and actually criticized the federal immigration agency’s behavior. 

“I don't believe that any type of law enforcement official, except for in some rare cases of tactical nature, should be wearing masks of any kind,” Kraham said. “I think some of the things that we've seen have been more performative than actually based in real law enforcement, and so I do not have Binghamton police officers who are in the task force model with ICE. We don't do that in Binghamton, and we will not do that as long as I'm mayor.”

Burnett argues that Kraham has not gone far enough to protect immigrants. Even though Kraham is going against his party on immigration enforcement, he hasn’t pushed through any legislation that would further protect immigrants living in the city, nor has he pushed back on Broome County Sheriff Fred Ashkar, whose office has a 287(g) agreement that lets the sheriff’s department work directly with ICE. 

The mayoral race in Binghamton could provide an early sign of the political dynamics on display in next year’s midterm elections. Binghamton hasn’t had a Democrat running City Hall since 2013, and the Working Families Party-backed Burnett is hoping to mobilize voters who normally don’t turn out for local elections, with his pound-the-pavement style of outreach, which he said has found a lot of success with house parties so far. As the county seat of one of the most important areas of the 19th Congressional District, the success of Kraham or Burnett would give Democratic Rep. Josh Riley and his eventual opponent clarity over which way the wind is blowing as voters react to President Donald Trump’s second term. Then again, Kraham said that Binghamton voters prioritize the candidate over their party. 

“When you're out in neighborhoods, or you're at community events and you're talking to folks, no one really brings up party affiliation, and that's been a long history in Binghamton,” he said. “We're a place that elects the person, not the party, and I think it's led to good, solid, common sense government.”