UPDATED: Nov. 8, 2017 at 8:26 a.m.

Ben Walsh made history by defeating Democrat Juanita Perez Williams in Syracuse’s general election Tuesday night to become the city’s second mayor-elect to ever be unaffiliated with any major political party.

Walsh, who trailed Perez Williams by about 7 percentage points throughout most of October, suddenly catapulted ahead of the former city attorney in a poll released Sunday.

That poll showed the candidates virtually neck and neck. They were separated by only 2 percentage points, within the 4.3 percent margin of error.

Using close friendships with influential Democrats, GOP members, business owners and executives, Walsh attracted a diverse range of supporters and amassed just over $440,000 in campaign contributions, the most of any candidate, state records show.

“We’re about to undertake a grand experiment,” Walsh said, standing beneath a set of red and blue balloons in the corner of a sprawling, ornate Hotel Syracuse ballroom. “To test whether or not we can set aside politics and instead work together … to test whether we can shed our decades of old pessimism.”

Hundreds of supporters packed together for Walsh’s election watch party at the iconic hotel, cheering and whistling beneath a set of chandeliers as DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win” blasted from a set of speakers. People started to chant “Let’s go Ben” at about 11 p.m.

The independent candidate won just under 55 percent of the electorate, garnering a total of 13,013 votes. Perez Williams received 9,105 votes.

Walsh, 38, has deep Republican roots. Syracuse’s mayor-elect is the son of former GOP congressman James Walsh and grandson of a Republican mayor, Bill Walsh. In an act of “youthful rebellion,” Walsh rejected his family’s political dynasty by registering as an independent after watching personal attacks unfold as part of “party politics.” He was 18 years old, at the time.

Josh Shub-Seltzer | Staff Photographer

Perez Williams, throughout the race, received dozens of high-profile endorsements from labor unions and powerful state officials, including New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Former Vice President Joe Biden also endorsed the Democratic candidate. But that wasn’t enough.

Paul Allen, a founding member of the Upstate Jobs Party, sat at a Hotel Syracuse table before results were released. In August, Walsh submitted 2,439 petition signatures to the county’s Board of Elections and qualified to appear on the Upstate Jobs Party line. The Upstate Jobs Party, branded as an anti-establishment group, formed in 2016.

“Walsh, for all of his life, has been very passionate about the future of Syracuse,” said Allen, who’s also a permaculture farmer in Cortland. “We’re really blessed.”

Lee Glover, a North Side resident who attended the Hotel Syracuse party, said Walsh will “turn Syracuse around,” in part by filling city police vacancies.

Sarah Murphy, a Westside resident who’s a registered Democrat, said she chose to vote for Walsh because she thinks he truly cares about Syracuse.

“I think a lot of people in politics see politics as the end. It’s all about winning and losing, and being loyal to your party,” the mayor-elect recently said. “And that always turned me off.”

At the beginning of the year, without a path to the ballot, Walsh initially expressed interest in the local GOP committee’s endorsement. Some committee members, though, refused to consider the former city official as a potential candidate because he wasn’t a registered Republican.

Walsh was eventually endorsed by the Reform Party in May and, after launching a write-in campaign, defeated Republican candidate Laura Lavine in September’s primary to snag the Independence Party line. The last time a mayoral candidate won the election running on a minor-party line was in 1913. That was Louis Will, a Progressive Party candidate.

Josh Shub-Seltzer | Staff Photographer

As ethics reform became a topic of debates, Walsh’s relationship with major city real estate developers was scrutinized by opponents in one of the mayoral race’s few points of contention.

For about six years, Walsh served as executive director of the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency, which can provide construction projects grants, bond financing and property tax exemptions.

Several wealthy developers who brought projects before SIDA during Walsh’s time at City Hall contributed thousands of dollars to his campaign. Executives and companies connected to a construction management firm, hired as general contractor for the redevelopment of Hotel Syracuse, donated more than $14,000 to Walsh’s campaign, state records show.

The former deputy commissioner of Syracuse’s department of neighborhood and business development played an instrumental role in that multimillion-dollar project, one developer recently said.

“(I) ask for your help and partnership in restoring Syracuse back to its rightful place as a great American city,” Walsh said in his victory speech. “Where prosperity is not the privilege of a few, but instead shared by us all.”

Walsh centered his candidacy around economic development. On the campaign trail, he frequently said that, if elected, he would push for more mixed-income and mixed-use construction and use his connections to Syracuse’s business community to promote job growth.

At mayoral forums, Walsh took an optimistic tone when talking the future of Syracuse, a city known for the most concentrated minority poverty in the United States, a large budget deficit and aging infrastructure.

Standing in a crowd of friends, family and Democratic politicians, mostly drowned out by applause, Walsh smiled.

“(We will) test the theory that we are, in fact, at our human best when we stop trying to get ahead by knocking others down,” Walsh said.

This post has been updated with additional reporting.

Published on November 7, 2017 at 10:42 pm

Contact Sandhya: ssiyer@syr.edu