The three candidates bring a lot to the table including their home base.
Resignations by Massachusetts State Representatives Jon Santiago and Ed Coppinger have resulted in Special State Primary elections on May 2, 2023 to elect their successors in the South End-based 9th Suffolk and West Roxbury-dominated 10th Suffolk districts. There are five Democratic candidates who submitted signatures and qualified for the two primary ballots.
Amparo “Chary” Ortiz has withdrawn from the 9th Suffolk race leaving John Moran as the presumptive winner of the South Boston-based seat. There are three strong candidates for 10th Suffolk seat Democratic primary, each one bringing different different assets to the race, including their three distinct neighborhoods.
| Candidate | Neighborhood | |
|---|---|---|
| Bill MacGregor | Loan Officer | West Roxbury |
| Robert Orthman | Attorney | Roslindale |
| Celia Segel | Health Policy Director | Jamaica Plain |
There are 160 State Representatives in the Massachusetts House of Representatives with 19 Suffolk County-based representatives, each who represents about 44,000 citizens from Boston or adjacent communities. Only two of the State Rep districts—East Boston’s 1st Suffolk and Dorchester’s 13th Suffolk—are contained in a single Boston neighborhood. Every other Suffolk-based State Rep district crosses neighborhood boundaries.
How important are the neighborhood boundaries to Boston state legislative races? The 10th Suffolk race is an extreme example where all three candidates are from different neighborhoods and one particular neighborhood, West Roxbury, contains over half of the likely voters.
I will use the votes from the 2022 State Democratic Primary to estimate the percentage of votes that we might see from each neighborhood in the May 2nd special primary.
The 10th Suffolk State Representative district has 22 Boston precincts and a single precinct in Brookline. Two of the Boston precincts are split between Roslindale and West Roxbury, complicating the estimated vote breakdown, but we can use the relative size of the neighborhood parts and adjust the vote totals accordingly (94% to 6%). Boston Ward 20 Precinct 1 is mostly in Roslindale with a small dip into West Roxbury, while Ward 20 Precinct 7 is more evenly split with 57% of the votes coming from Roslindale and 43% coming from West Roxbury.
| Precinct | Neighborhood | 2022 Dem. Primary Votes |
|---|---|---|
| Boston 19-2 | Jamaica Plain | 601 |
| Boston 19-3 | Jamaica Plain | 319 |
| Boston 19-8 | Jamaica Plain | 444 |
| Boston 20-1 (part 1) | Roslindale | 486 |
| Boston 20-1 (part 2) | West Roxbury | 31 |
| Boston 20-10 | West Roxbury | 560 |
| Boston 20-11 | West Roxbury | 309 |
| Boston 20-12 | West Roxbury | 392 |
| Boston 20-13 | West Roxbury | 355 |
| Boston 20-14 | West Roxbury | 356 |
| Boston 20-15 | West Roxbury | 413 |
| Boston 20-16 | West Roxbury | 469 |
| Boston 20-17 | West Roxbury | 594 |
| Boston 20-18 | West Roxbury | 330 |
| Boston 20-19 | West Roxbury | 332 |
| Boston 20-2 | Roslindale | 468 |
| Boston 20-20 | West Roxbury | 462 |
| Boston 20-4 | Roslindale | 518 |
| Boston 20-5 | West Roxbury | 423 |
| Boston 20-6 | West Roxbury | 592 |
| Boston 20-7 (part 1) | Roslindale | 209 |
| Boston 20-7 (part 2) | West Roxbury | 159 |
| Boston 20-8 | Roslindale | 399 |
| Boston 20-9 | Roslindale | 412 |
| Brookline 16 | Brookline | 538 |
The final breakdown shows West Roxbury with 57% of the vote, Roslindale with 25%, Jamaica Plain with 13%, and the single Brookline precinct giving 5% of the vote.
| Neighborhood | 2022 Dem. Primary Votes | % of Votes |
|---|---|---|
| Brookline | 538 | 5% |
| Jamaica Plain | 1,364 | 13% |
| Roslindale | 2,493 | 25% |
| West Roxbury | 5,776 | 57% |
The obvious neighborhood advantage would seem to go to Bill MacGregor with his home base of Roxbury and his endorsement by departing State Representative and West Roxbury stalwart Ed Coppinger.
The story for Robert Orthman is more complicated as he is originally from West Roxbury while currently making his home in Roslindale. Orthman has also received the mainstream endorsement of the Boston Globe, while also being endorsed by some progressive and activist groups.
Celia Segel is at a relative disadvantage with only 13% of the votes likely to come from Jamaica Plain, but gotten high profile endorsements from Emily’s List, the MTA, and sitting legislators like Cindy Creem, Becca Rausch, and Julian Cyr.
It is very hard to understand the dynamics and predict an outcome in a three-way race without high-quality polling, which presumably the candidates or associated groups have done. As is often said, the poll that really matters is the one at the ballot box on Tuesday. In the meantime, we can speculate on how much the influence the home neighborhood of each candidate will play in the final outcome for the 10th Suffolk legislative seat.