 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This victory is ours. It is the first of many. The office right now, you are being put on notice. That was a clip from the victory speech of India Walton, who is now poised to become the first socialist mayor in decades. And it is really, really nice to see this. I'm a little bit late to the party on this particular story, but there's no way I'm passing up this opportunity for really, really good hopeium. So for more details on this, we go to Rebecca Sherrod of NBC News, who explains a socialist candidate in Buffalo, New York defeated the city's four-term mayor in a major upset in Tuesday's Democratic primary. India B. Walton beat Mayor Byron Brown 52% to 45% with 100% of precincts reporting. The press called the race late Wednesday morning. Quote, I believe we won because we organized. We have a message of care, love, and hope that is resonant with working class Buffalo. Walton told MSNBC's I'm in Moyeldon on Wednesday. If Walton 39 wins the general election in November, she will become the first socialist mayor of a large American city since 1960, when Frank Zadler left office in Milwaukee. The chances of winning are high since Buffalo hasn't had a Republican mayor since 1965. After declaring victory, Walton called her mother by phone and was seen in a video recorded by the Buffalo News celebrating Mommy, I won. Mommy, I'm the mayor of Buffalo. Well, not until January, but yeah. Walton has worked as a nurse and community activist in Buffalo and had never run for elected office. Brown 62% did not concede Tuesday night, saying the race was too close to call. He has served as Buffalo's mayor since 2006 and previously was chair of the New York Democratic Party and a member of the state legislature. The Buffalo News reported he's weighing a right in campaign against Walton, of course. There is no Republican candidate in the race. So as it stands now, she looks poised to win. I'm not going to say that her victory is guaranteed because I don't want to take this for granted and get a little bit too arrogant because, you know, her former opponent in the Democratic Party primary is weighing a right in campaign. But I mean, even if he chooses to do this, I mean, she beat him once. She can beat him again. And this is a very, very heavily Democratic Party leading district. So odds are they're going to support her. She's on the ticket of Democrats and working families party. So I mean, all around this is really excellent to see because what she can now do is create a blueprint for other mayors, the campaign that she ran and look, it's it's her successes now that will prove how popular socialist programs are. And it's not like she's like extremely radical and she's she is, you know, advocating for seizing the means of production violently. That's not what she's talking about. Her socialism is a brand that is a lot more softer around the edges. You know, it's more social democratic, but I don't want to speak for her. But she talks about basically expanding the social safety and tackling poverty in a real meaningful way. And when I hear her speak, it really reminds me of the old speeches from Bernie Sanders when he was the mayor of Burlington, Vermont. And it's really nice to see. Now, I do want to play a clip from that MSNBC interview that was referenced where she talks about her style of socialism and also what her first priority is going to be. And it's going to warm your heart to hear her speak about this. Joining me now is India Walton. Thank you so much for your time. First of all, congratulations to you on this historic victory. Your opponent will be the first incumbent Buffalo Mayor to lose since 1961. New York Governor Andrew Coma had this to say on Brown earlier. His campaign strategy, as I understand it, was basically to avoid engaging in a campaign. And then you had a very low turnout. We know that combination. We've seen that before. That doesn't work. I want to get your thoughts on why you won. I mean, there's going to be a lot of people who are going to speculate about it as we just heard there from the governor giving us his political analysis. But what do you believe are the reasons for your victory? I believe we won because we organized. We have a message of care, love and hope that is resonant with working class Buffalo. We organized and we won. As I noted, you would be the country's first socialist mayor in more than 60 years. People like Governor Cuomo again have called your win an anomaly. I want to hear from you what you think this means for the broader movement in the country and progressives generally. What does it mean for leftist politics nationally? And obviously you're aware of how those on the right use the term socialism to hammer the Democratic Party generally. And what do you make of that broadly speaking? The pandemic has proven that we can have social programs that prioritize people and working class families. And we can make efforts to reduce childhood poverty and it works. No one is returning their stimulus. We all enjoyed free health care and immunizations. That is socialism. That is our government stepping up to take care of its people. And that is what we should expect as Americans, as New Yorkers, and as Buffalonians. If elected in the general election and you do become mayor of Buffalo, what do you feel needs to change in that city specifically? What would your priorities be as mayor? My priority is putting resources in neighborhoods and really tackling the issue of poverty. Buffalo is the third poor city of our size in the country. It is unacceptable. We have disproportionately poor health outcomes. We know that social determinants of health are on a lot of people's radar as an indicator of a successful community. So we are looking at getting to the root causes of concentrated poverty and disadvantage. So that was great. And I think that her message right there, really, that is the perfect way that you sell socialism to normal working Americans. Because even though we've made some progress, it still is the case that socialism, that's basically a boogeyman in the United States like it or not. We have to push back against that. But the way that she is selling it is she's trying to tell people that socialism isn't necessarily this foreign concept as it's been made out to be. It's actually a little bit more familiar and she brings in familiar policies like the stimulus check. We all love the stimulus check. We're not returning our stimulus checks. She pointed that out. We got the socialism in the form of free healthcare immunizations with the COVID-19 shots. So these public policies, they work and they're extremely, extremely popular. So the way that she speaks about socialism, not only is she kind of taking away all the negative connotations and the smears that will inevitably come, even though you're not going to disarm all of that, but she's bringing in people who are reluctant and don't necessarily like the word socialism. But she's getting them to think about this in a different way. Oh, well, I like that the COVID-19 shot was free. I like the stimulus check. So it's brilliant. And politicians like her, like she is so good for the movement. Every single success, every victory that we have as a movement I think needs to be celebrated because look, we don't get victories electorally speaking that frequently. So when we have a major one like this, especially an upset that wasn't expected by anyone, I think we have to celebrate it. And look, I'm really happy about this.