ProgressiveMass now has endorsed progressive challengers to Richard Neal (MA-1) and Steven Lynch (MA-8). Not really any surprises here, but I wonder if at some point there will be a stampede to the exits for two of the least-progressive or -effective members of the Massachusetts US House delegation. This would be an earthquake; and while it’s still probably a long shot that both would be replaced, it seems more likely this year than ever before.
Neal has been a nebbish in the face of the Trump administration’s brazen corruption: He never got Trump’s tax returns, which is a pretty fundamental thing and his bailiwick as Chair of Ways and Means. He was responsible for writing the error-riddled CARES act — citing the advice of Robert Rubin and in which help only got to ordinary people quite late; but somehow managed to end up in the hands of wealthy not-very-small businesses. He’s known for granting access to special interests at lavish fundraisers. None of this really screams “Springfield Mass.” at me. If there were a poster boy for Congressional-Democratic-Establishment ineffectuality, Neal would be it.
His challenger Alex Morse is the young Mayor of Holyoke is painting himself as a progressive of the new post-Bernie mold: Pro-Green-New-Deal, and -Medicare For All. But to posit any policy ambition equal to our moment is an indictment of Neal. Update: Western Mass. Politics and Insight (Matt Szafranski’s project) had an assessment of the race vis-a-vis COVID about a month ago.
Game developer Brianna Wu was the only challenger to Lynch, but she dropped out a month ago, citing the difficulty of campaigning during the pandemic. I know very little about Lynch’s remaining challenger Robbie Goldstein, an MGH primary care doc who jumped in earlier this year — here’s an interview from Jamaica Plain News.
Goldstein: I have not met Congressman Lynch. Every day, I hear from folks in the district about our shared challenges that have gone unaddressed for too long: the existential threat of climate change, traffic that seems to get worse with every commute, and the rising costs of housing and healthcare taking up more and more of every paycheck.
My impression of Congressman Lynch comes from my own experience and what I’ve heard from other voters and residents: that he has failed to lead on these and other issues that impact every person in the 8th District in one way or another. Whether it’s the epidemic of gun violence or the opioid crisis, climate change or rising income inequality, our collective failure to act means that more and more people suffer.
Lynch is tough in this district — just vulnerable enough to invite challengers, and strong enough to turn them back. He is really well-connected with some of the most powerful constituencies, like the trades, of which he was a member. They were loyal to him in 2013 when he ran against Markey in the Senate special primary. But there’s always a question of the breadth of his appeal in the Dem coalition; and those unions didn’t carry the day against Markey in 2013. If things are shifting in MA-8 like they seem to be in other places, Lynch could have a fight on his hands.
It must be exceptionally hard these days to have a feeling “on the ground” for what people are feeling in those districts. And I haven’t seen any polling. But one might imagine that the Trump era is making people ready to break things, even in their own blue districts. Anyone got any insight?
I am pretty comfortable predicting that Lynch and Neal will be returned to their seats. I think Morse is a much better financed and more capable challenger and I hope he succeeds. That said, I think we underestimate that the people who tend to vote in these September primaries are older, whiter, and more conservative legacy Democrats. Especially in those two districts.
Pressley won in part by turning out a lot of new Camberville residents who were already active primary voters from the Toomey-Connolly primary in Capuanos backyard and also for being the better known quantity and top vote getter on the Boston side. Add the AOC win a few months prior and you get a recipe hard to repeat two years later on the other side of the state.
The people of color in Neals district are too spread out and disorganized, the college kids have gone home, and there are more Biden towns (including Springfield) than Warren ones. Same with the Lynch district.
Lynch is also less vulnerable than Neal since he shows up. This district is full of communities that send Timilty, Rush, and Keenan to the Senate. I suspect gentrifying demographics could eventually do him in as they did in Toomey and to a lesser extent Capuano. Southie barely elected Flynn’s kid to the Council seat, so I could see the New Southie voting for a white progressive or a dynamic candidate of color who could also do well in the Dorchester and Quincy parts. Either way, it won’t be the ones who stepped up this cycle.
Well… While I agree that Lynch is a lock, I think the MA first, is going to be quite different: Neal is going to have to fight very very hard to keep his seat. I don’t think he can do it. The entire district has little more than 60,000 people, over 40,000 of whom are residents of Holyoke.
People in Holyoke, and surrounding areas, are (quite justifiably) thoroughly enraged — even the ‘September’ voters who are, yes, whiter, older and the more conservative ‘legacy Democrats’ (whatever it is you think you mean by that)– at the utterly complete catastro-cluster-disastro-calamity that is the saga of the Holyoke Soldiers Home: an epic fail that hits hard for all, but which targets most directly at the motives and values of the ‘whiter, older and more conservative’ voters… If we can’t protect someone who landed at Normandy, what–exactly– is the point of government?
When some people die, other people ask these existential questions. This does not bode will for the otherwise timorous Neal.
Is Neal being primarily blamed for that though?
You’d have to ask the Mayor of Holyoke… he might know better than anyone else.
I’m confused: The entire district has 60,000 people? You mean 728,000?
Neal had nothing to do with the Holyoke Soldiers Home tragedy. It’s a state facility; the manager was from a locally prominent family; they’re fighting out who is to blame. The supervisor Bennett Walsh just released his emails sent to the state as the outbreak began.
Incidentally Neal’s uncle was at that home.
I doubt Neal gets blamed specifically; but sometimes discontent can overwhelm incumbents for no specific reason. This doesn’t help.
I suspect that petr meant 60,000 minority voters — according to your link, CD1 has 6% Black and 2% Asian residents. My calculator says that that’s 58,314 (minority) residents.
I share your discomfort with finger-pointing like this. I suspect we’ll be learning about abhorrent behavior by government officials for at least years.
I’m more troubled by the failure to obtain Mr. Trump’s tax records together with the shameful giveaway to the wealthy in the CARES act than I am by a nursing home caught by surprise — I doubt that Mr. Neal had much if anything to do with the operation of that facility or the corruption that no doubt permeates it.
Massachusetts government has had pervasive corruption for the nearly fifty years I’ve lived in Massachusetts. That isn’t the fault of Mr. Neal.
With handouts like this to the wealthy while Democrats control the House, who needs Republicans?
I also doubt Rep. Neal is directly responsible for what happened at the Holyoke Soldiers Home, but it has always surprised me that people act surprised this and similar facilities were so severely affected. Vulnerable population in close quarters – what did they expect? This is an example of how I would have done things differently from the start. Rather than tell the whole world to socially distance and put on a mask I would have closed off these facilities to visitors earlier and tested the heck out of the staff.
Those — socially distance + mask and closing off nursing homes — are not a dichotomy.
This morning’s New York Times has a piece about the devastating situation in the crowded high rises of NYC. In the nation’s most intense hot spot, with the pandemic still going on, the piece reports crowds packed into small hallways waiting for crowded and slow elevators to arrive.
We are literally killing our poor and elderly. I suggest we keep that issue separate from masks and distancing.
I’ll add right after Washington‘s nursing home cases first were reported, my wife’s nursing home closed itself off to visitors and started testing its workers and it wasn’t enough. One person with the virus was all it took to spread like wildfire, likely an underpaid CNA or per diem nurse coming from another hospital who was asymptotic when their temp got taken. It then became one of the worst in the state and the national guard actually was activated to conduct testing. 60 patients ultimately got the virus and died.
How would shutting down all of society have prevented what you describe?
@Christopher: It might not have. That’s why there’s no dichotomy between them.
The purpose of social distancing, lockdowns, and masks is to slow the spread of COVID-19 in a community. The fewer contagious people in a community, the more slowly the virus spreads.
The steps needed to protect nursing home residents have little or nothing to do with social distancing and lockdowns. Nursing home residents are elderly and frail, many with compromised immune systems and other comorbidities.
Steps that effectively protect nursing home residents will have little effect in the community. Steps that effectively protect the community have little effect in the community.
Yes, we should have protected nursing home residents better and sooner.
That has nothing to do with social distancing, lockdowns, and masks.
I’ve noticed the BMG format changed slightly a few days ago. Apparently, using my name in a comment as you did above triggers an email to me notifying me that my name has been invoked.
Ach ok. Let me check the settings on that….
Not necessarily complaining, but it was new and caught me by surprise. Probably should be user’s option whether to get an email or not.