Those hoping that an insurgent Blue Wave will dislodge Republicans from control of the U.S. House of Representatives can take heart from a sea change in Massachusetts primaries Tuesday in which edgier progressives dislodged establishment Democrats.
The most significant: Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley of Dorchester scored an historic upset over U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano of Somerville, who served in Congress for 20 years.
“It seems that change is on the way,” said Pressley, claiming victory around 10 p.m., minutes after Capuano conceded.
Surfing that wave of change: Rachael Rollins defeated the favored Gregg Henning for Suffolk County District Attorney; novice candidate Nika Elugardo unseated House Ways and Means Chair Jeffrey Sanchez in 15th Suffolk; and surgeon Jon Santiago replaced Majority Whip Byron Rushing in the 9th Suffolk. (Santiago once interned for Rushing.)
If primary night had a theme for the Democrats, it was that business as usual won’t work anymore. The victories of Pressley and Rollins, both women of color, certainly testified to that. But the defeats of Sanchez and Rushing share an additional common denominator. These two vastly experienced progressive legislators were deemed to be too close to House Speaker Robert DeLeo and were taken out. (The exception to this trend was Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin fending off a challenge from Boston City Councilor Josh Zakim.)
Ayanna Pressley
Pressley was winning Tuesday night with a 18-point margin over Capuano. Mid-summer, Capuano was ahead by almost that much.
The change in Pressley’s fortunes appears to have come in the wake of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez surprising New York victory in June.
Pressley, 44, won election to the city council nine years ago, the first African American woman to do so.
Before Capuano, the 7th district (or its previous incarnation) was political home to John F. Kennedy, Thomas P. Tip O’Neill and Joseph Kennedy.
The 7th congressional is a multi-cultural amalgam of largely working and middle-class households pocked with neighborhoods of poverty. It’s the only Bay State congressional district in which voters of color outnumber whites. It sprawls from Everett, through Somerville, Cambridge, Boston, and Milton to Randolph.
In congressional politics, geography is destiny. The 7th was originally configured years ago with an eye toward then-State Senator Diane Wilkerson moving in to take it over when its then holder, U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy, ran for governor.
Kennedy, of course, never ran for governor. Wilkerson went to jail for accepting bribes. And Somerville Mayor Michael Capuano went to Washington.
Now it’s Pressley’s turn.
Districts don’t get much more Democratic than the 7th. So it’s no surprise that Pressley faces no Republican challenger in November.
Charlie Baker
Republican Charlie Baker of Swampscott, often hailed as America’s most popular governor, claimed his party’s nomination for a second four-year term as Massachusetts’ chief executive with ease Tuesday.
Baker was outpolling his opponent, Pastor Scott Lively of Springfield by almost 65 to 35 percent.
A devoted fan of President Donald Trump, Lively cultivated a dark reputation preaching the evils of homosexuality throughout the United States, and in Latvia, Russia, and Uganda.
Throughout his first term, Baker styled himself as a bipartisan technocrat, centrist and sensible – a sort of town manager writ large.
Polls suggest that Baker is slightly more popular among Democrats than Republicans. At last count 66 percent of Democrats approved of his performance.
Republicans, on the other hand, gave Baker 60 percent approval.
In April, at the Republican state convention in Worcester, delegates gave Baker a solid seal of approval.
But that endorsement was sullied by Lively receiving nearly 28 percent of the vote – well over the 15 percent needed to put him on the ballot.
The Lively showing was widely seen as a shot across Baker’s bow, a not-so-subtle reminder to keep the governor from straying too far from the political center.
Baker had been tight-lipped about Lively’s candidacy, essentially acting as if Lively was beneath recognition.
Whether Baker recognized Lively is now beside the point. More than a third of the Republicans who voted in the primary cast their ballots for the author of a book that claims Nazism was a “homosexual” conspiracy.
Jay Gonzalez
Challenging Baker will be 46-year-old Democrat Jay Gonzalez of Needham. Gonzales served as Gov. Deval Patrick’s secretary of administration and finance.
Gonzales beat 62-year-old Bob Massie of Somerville, a social activist and educator who once ran for lieutenant governor.
Both Gonzalez and Massie had trouble achieving name recognition throughout the summer, but on primary night Gonzalez enjoyed a comfortable lead with 65 percent of the vote.
Quentin Palfrey
Quentin Palfrey, a former Obama Administration staffer, will join the Gonzalez ticket as lieutenant governor. Palfrey defeated comedian (and Harvard Kennedy school graduate) Jimmy Tingle in the Democratic race for Massachusetts lieutenant governor, by a 59 to 41 margin.
Geoff Diehl
If the contest to unseat Gov. Charlie Baker is considered a long shot by political professionals, the bid to beat incumbent U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren may be the longest shot in Massachusetts.
State Rep. Geoff Diehl, who spearheaded Donald Trump’s Massachusetts campaign, easily topped his opponents, with about 55 percent of the votes cast. Investor John Kingston and former Romney administration official Beth Lindstrom received about 27 percent and 18 percent of the vote, respectively.
That the Trump-centric Diehl supports the Trump-averse Baker just goes to prove the cliché that politics makes strange bedfellows.
