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BOSTON – A long Massachusetts political tradition shows big cracks.
The victory of Boston city councilor Ayanna Pressley over Michael Capuano, a ten-member Democrat candidate in a Massachusetts House race, is one of those challenging the culture of deference. long-term holders. In Massachusetts, the main challenges are rare and there is often a political order for the seats that are open.
This week has shown that political culture is evolving. In the Democratic primary for the local district attorney's seat, a first-time and progressive candidate cleared an area that included a veteran backed by big names of law enforcement. At the State House, two long-time senior Democratic legislators have lost their main challenges.
"There is a hierarchy at the Massachusetts Democratic Party that has existed for decades thanks to the famous names … and to the candidates who have remained in power for decades at the State House," Maurice Cunningham, an associate professor of political science at the US. University of Massachusetts in Boston. said Wednesday.
Culture, which puts a "real ceiling" on women and minority candidates, "has exploded," he said. "These candidates have everything but destroyed."
Ms. Pressley, 44, who in 2009 became the first black woman elected to the Boston City Council, will enter Congress in January as the first African-American member of the Massachusetts House and will head the Boston District when represented by John F. Kennedy. The main winner goes to Congress – there are no Republican or third party candidates in the general vote.
Capuano, a 66-year-old white man, has not faced a major challenge or GOP challenger since his first home race in 1998.
"We challenged conventional wisdom," Pressley said in an email to supporters on Wednesday. During last week's election campaign, she suggested that some people in her party had been "stuck in the argument of seniority" and asked, "Why do we have this family fight?
Capuano said his congressional experience and connections have been good for the district, but said Tuesday night that "the district obviously wanted a lot of change."
Mr. Capuano's long stretch of office was not uncommon. Thomas Menino, former Mayor of Boston, served five terms from 1993 to 2014. Senator Ted Kennedy, who died in 2009, served nearly five decades, from 1962 to 2009. John Kerry took office in 1985 and left the Senate in 2013. "Imagine being the junior state senator for 24 years," said Mr. Cunningham.
Residents and African-American activists in Boston call Ms. Pressley's breakthrough in a city whose history and reputation have been complicated since school desegregation and the crisis of the 1970s. According to census estimates, minorities have has always been lagging behind in positions of power, even though people of color make up the majority of the city's population.
Ms. Pressley had few significant political differences with Mr. Capuano, who is also among the progressive members of the House. Instead, she argued that Mr. Capuano was not activist enough on progressive issues in the only district in the state where the majority of the people are not white. She also took advantage of the party's resistance to President Trump to beat Mr. Capuano.
Activists also welcome the victory of Rachael Rollins, who won a Democratic primary and could become the first black female prosecutor in Suffolk County and the second elected African-American at that seat. In August, Boston's first black police commissioner was sworn in.
"These breakthroughs are telling us in the right direction," said Tanisha Sullivan, president of the NAACP branch in Boston. "Over the next two or four years, what we are going to see is very real – a very real change – what our elected representatives and experiences are like."
There have been improvements, she said. Several other minority women have been elected to the city council, although Boston, where the mayor's post is considered one of the country's strongest, has still not elected a black mayor.
Since 1983, only two serious candidates of color have participated in the last ballot for the Mayor of Boston and have both lost.
"Our electoral leadership is not as representative as it should be with people who reflect the neighborhoods and communities they serve," said former Boston City Councilman Tito Jackson on Wednesday. "But I feel that last night it started to change."
Write to Jennifer Levitz at [email protected]
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