As clichéd as it sounds, Buffalo’s historic June 2021 primary, in which democratic socialist India Walton won a major upset over four-term incumbent Byron Brown, is something of a tale of two cities. And it’s the same tale that Buffalonians have discussed for generations: the “East-West divide” carved by Main Street through the heart of the city.

According to Anthony Armstrong, founder of Make Communities and coauthor of the Racial Equity Dividend report for Buffalo-Niagara, the “‘Main Street divide’ is real, and it is stark.” The predominantly African American East Side of Main Street is the product of decades of redlining and disinvestment. West of Main Street, by contrast, is made up of many of the city’s most walkable, amenity-rich neighborhoods like Elmwood and Hertel, which are both disproportionately white and affluent, in addition to the city’s most racially diverse neighborhoods.

At first glance, the primary appears to have broken mostly along these lines. The map below depicts Buffalo’s election districts according to which candidate won a plurality or better of votes cast. Data was obtained from the Erie County Board of Elections’ (BOE) results portal on June 30, 2021, and joined to Erie County’s election district spatial data layer in a geographic information system. Seemingly for economy, the BOE occasionally combines data from nearby election districts when reporting results. The following map accounts for all such combinations.