Democratic-socialist candidate for Buffalo mayor India Walton says she's open to helping the billionaire owner of the Buffalo Bills build a new stadium, she tells us in the EIC Interview

• India Walton is a democratic socialist, the Democratic nominee for Buffalo mayor, and a Bills fan.
• She shocked everyone by beating four-term incumbent Byron Brown in the Democratic primary.
• She's open to a public-private partnership to keep the Bills in town if it means jobs.

I'm Nicholas Carlson, the global editor in chief of Insider. Here's the latest installment of my series, The EIC Interview, condensed and edited for clarity.

One popular narrative about your race is that the current mayor of Buffalo wasn't paying very close attention to the primary and that, given how low turnout was, if he had been paying attention he might have won. How do you react to that? Does that narrative hurt your mandate if you win the general election?

I don't think that's the dominant narrative, right? The first thing is it's offensive to me to not have the hard work of myself and my team acknowledged, because we did work hard. I want to clarify that voter turnout was not lower than it normally is in the Buffalo mayoral primary. It was about the same. The turnout that was lower is that his supporters didn't turn out for him because of his campaign. And you know, I think that it is a testament to the way that he governs. He has ignored his constituency. He has ignored the voters. Last summer he ignored our community while people suffered through a pandemic. He ignored protesters who were crying out for accountability in our police department, and that is the reason why I was able to be victorious. Because he doesn't appreciate and has ignored, and not served our community for so long. And also because we worked hard. We had a solid strategy. And we're gonna do it again November 2.

Now he's trying to run as an independent, but didn't he already have his chance with the voters?

I believe that he had his chance with the voters. He has been a Democrat in elected office for nearly three decades. He was the former chair of the state Democratic Party. So for him to try and make the case that he is now some kind of independent candidate is ridiculous.

Kathy Hochul, the new governor of New York, hasn't endorsed you. She said she's not making local endorsements. But you won the Democratic nomination - and she's a Democrat. What do you say to the governor when she won't do that?

I think that the governor has bigger fish to fry. She's assuming a really difficult and complex position, and I think that she should be focused on governing the state of New York. We can hash out our problems here in Buffalo.

I'm going to take a leap of faith here and assume you're a Bills fan …

I was born and raised in Buffalo. Of course I'm a Bills fan.

OK, all right. So, as mayor would you be willing to use city resources to help the billionaire owner of the Buffalo Bills stay happy, have the best facilities, and stay in town?

First I just want to say that according to the current mayor, the city is not involved in any negotiation with the NFL or the Bills.

What I will say is that I don't believe we have any business making billionaires happy when there are people living in poverty, right?

That being said, I know how much this community loves the Bills. I love the Bills, and I think that any public resources that goes into a new stadium, the community needs to have a binding community-benefits agreement, needs to have a first-source hiring policy. I think that that could potentially solve some of the issues that we see in the city of Buffalo regarding job creation, investments in infrastructure, closing that racial-wealth and home-ownership gap. So I would be more interested in what the community benefits of a publicly financed anything would be than necessarily where the team is located.