Progressives See Big Win In Worcester 2021 Election

WORCESTER, MA — In June 2020, Worcester Councilor Sarai Rivera raised a controversial question: should the city remove the Christopher Columbus statue at Union Station?

At the time, protests were raging across the nation after the murder of George Floyd. Statues of Columbus and Confederate generals — symbols of genocide and slavery to many — were being toppled. The Columbus statue in Boston was beheaded, and vandals repeatedly splashed the Worcester statue with red paint.

Rivera wanted the city manager to work with local Italian-Americans to remove the statue and replace it with something to "honor the many contributions of Worcester's Italian community." The request died in an 8-2 vote with only Rivera and At-Large Councilor Khrystian King voting in favor, and Mayor Joseph Petty abstaining.

After Tuesday's election, some local political watchers think votes like that may not be so controversial in the future.

On Nov. 2, voters in Worcester elected two new progressive City Councilors in Etel Haxhiaj, an Albanian refugee and the first Muslim woman elected to the Council, and Thu Nguyen, a nonbinary Vietnamese refugee. Their election could change the calculus of the City Council.

Cara Berg Powers, chair of the Worcester Working Families political action committee, said four solidly progressive votes — Rivera, King, Haxhiaj and Nguyen — could attract the support of more moderate members: Councilors like Petty, District 3 Councilor George Russell and District 1 Councilor Sean Rose, who defeated a challenger from the right in 2021. That could give progressives an edge in tenuous votes.

At-Large Councilor Morris Bergman, who won a new term Tuesday and describes himself as a moderate, agreed with Powers — even though her Worcester Working Families PAC targeted him in 2021. He was the fifth-highest vote-getter in the top-six At-Large race.

"There were definitely a significant amount of voters that took a positive view of more progressive candidates," he said Wednesday of the results. "If you look at the dynamics, there's going to be at least two additional people who market themselves as being progressive [on Council]."

The progressive gains didn't end at the Council race. The two School Committee candidates who opposed the district's new sex-ed curriculum lost, including incumbent Dianna Biancheria.

Voters also elected Jermaine Johnson, the first Black man to serve on the School Committee (Johnson also earned the most votes of any candidate in Tuesday's election). Newcomers Sue Mailman, a strong union supporter, and Jermoh Kamara, a Liberian-born woman who called for the ouster of Superintendent Maureen Binienda back in August, won seats too.

Johanna Hampton-Dance, who ran against District 2 Councilor Candy Mero-Carlson, lost her race, but Powers saw hope in the results. The newcomer came was just 259 votes behind the three-term incumbent, who hasn't had a challenger since 2015.

Powers listed a number of reasons why progressive challengers did well on Tuesday. She thinks they may have worked harder than some incumbents. They all knocked thousands of doors, giving voters the chance to hear from them directly while their opponents went negative.

In the District 5 race, Gregory Stratman — whose campaign signs borrowed typography from Donald Trump — sent out mail pieces calling Haxhiaj "extreme Etel" and accusing her of supporting a "new property tax surcharge" (a reference to the Community Preservation Act). But when faced with Haxhiaj at the door, voters most likely just met a single mother of two who wanted to talk about improving bus service and sidewalks, Powers said.

"It's just not convincing," Powers said of the negative attacks.

Worcester could be getting younger, with new families and residents seeing more to like in new candidates, she said. There were also a few high-profile negative incidents in the 2021 election that may have turned voters off: School Committee candidate Shanel Soucy was accused of making an anti-LGBTQ comment; and District 1 candidate Richard Cipro had to answer for a Facebook page he cofounded that was the site of an Adolf Hitler reference.

At-Large Candidate Guillermo Creamer, a member of the city's Human Rights Commission, did not win on Nov. 2, but says he's not done with electoral politics in Worcester — partly because Tuesday's results assured him there's a desire for more progressive candidates.

Creamer, who is openly gay, said Nguyen's win as a nonbinary candidate especially shows that Worcester is ready for new types of candidates.

"I think the reality, for me, is that I'm not going anywhere," he said on Wednesday. "Last night's results prove people want change in the city of Worcester."