Syracuse Democratic voters on Tuesday once again picked someone to be their party’s candidate for mayor who wasn’t the one local party leaders wanted.

Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens cruised to victory in the Democratic primary over longtime Common Councilor Pat Hogan, who had been endorsed by the Onondaga County Democratic Committee as their designated candidate.

It is in fact the third mayoral election in a row where Democratic voters rejected the committee’s choice.

In 2017, the party backed then-Common Councilor Joe Nicoletti to succeed Stephanie Miner, but was defeated in the primary by Juanita Perez-Williams. In 2021, the party backed Common Councilor Michael Greene, but he was defeated narrowly by Common Councilor Khalid Bey. Both would lose in their respective general elections to Ben Walsh, an independent, who endorsed Owens to succeed him this year since term limits prevent him from running again.

Spectrum News 1 asked Walsh about this on Tuesday evening as returns were still coming in.

“Sharon is a life-long Democrat but she’s never been active in the party because she’s never been active in politics,” Walsh said. “She’s been serving the community. She’s been in the community, in the grassroots , and when you’re vying for support among party committee members, that isn’t very helpful to you. They look for loyalty. But when you’re vying for the support of voters, being in the community and having the experience she does is clearly resonating.”

Max Ruckdeschel, chair of the Onondaga County Democratic Committee, said he wouldn’t consider this a trend.

“Each race is specific. Four years ago, the race was decided by 36 votes. So it’s kind of hard to say, you know, to draw any conclusion from that. Eight years ago was a race with many candidates. I believe we had seven candidates that were seeking the designation, including multiple who had been elected to public office in the past, so that’s again, each election is unique,” Ruckdeschel said. “This year you had, in seeking our designation, you had a candidate who had never run for elected office before, had never been involved in the Onondaga County Democratic Committee, versus a candidate who had won election to office in the city of Syracuse multiple times over a couple of decades and who had built strong relationships with committee members over that entire time. So that’s not surprising that Pat Hogan got the committee designation.”

Ruckdeschel said the committee has reached out to Owens since her victory and is “looking forward to working with her and her campaign to get a Democrat elected as mayor of Syracuse again.”

“The committee designation is not trying to pick primary winners. The committee members are making individual decisions who they think is the best candidate. And that’s why we have primaries, to give the voters a choice,” he said.

While the results are what they are, the number of Democratic voters who vote in primary elections for mayor also make it difficult to conclude voters' true sentiment. Onondaga County Democratic Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny posted on X that Democratic turnout on Tuesday was approximately 19% with some mail-in ballots still outstanding. In 2021, about 13% of registered Democrats voted in the primary.

Ruckdeschel called this year’s turnout “disappointing.”