Neal is a seemingly irremovable congressional fixture, serving Western Massachusetts in Washington since 1989. As chair of the powerful Ways and Means Committee and with millions in campaign cash, there is little doubt that Neal will secure yet another term this fall. But Martilli says he has a plan.
“The election is going to be won by the independent voting base, which are called unenrolled in Massachusetts," he told WAMC. "So, there are 320,000 unenrolled voters in the 1st district. I’ve been out there talking to a lot of people for several months- They want change, they're upset with what's going what's going on in government. I represent change for them. I have no connections to Richie Neal, the Democrat Party, Nancy Pelosi, and I'm everything against what they're pushing.”
In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden overwhelming won Massachusetts over President Trump with roughly two-thirds of the vote. Neal was last challenged by a Republican in a general election over a decade ago when he beat Tom Wesley with 57% of the vote to Wesley’s 43% in 2010.
According to the state, 60% of voters – around 3 million people – are unenrolled. 30% are Democrats and just 9% are Republicans.
Martilli’s campaign website describes him as fiscally conservative, anti-abortion, and opposed to “the social engineering that has been the priority of our current government officials.”
“It's the woke agenda of the Democrats," Martilli explained. "It's, wherever you go, it's, you can't say this, you’ve got to do this. And then it's control, it's taking away your ability to choose. They're controlling you. You’ve got to wear a mask, even though when they find out that it's not doing anything, you’ve got to wear the mask. Oh, you got to get the vax, which you can't even really be called a vaccine because it didn't go through the proper channels. It's a biological, I don't know, a biological shot or something. But they don't want to call it that. But they call it a vaccine incorrectly. And they tell you, you got to get it.”
Martilli’s message is built on fear, claiming that under the Democratic Party America has lurched into dystopia.
“Those are the types of things, you know. Parents’ rights with their kids, you know, what's going on in the classroom, gender mutilation on young people. This is what, this is crazy stuff," he told WAMC. "We're going into what I think is Marxism, communism. We have a president that acts like a dictator. Totalitarian form of government. That's what I'm going to- Let's get back to the constitution. We got we got a president that just makes a demand that we're going to take care of all these student loans for people that made under $125,000 a year. That's dictatorship. People made those decisions on their own. The family or the or the person that went to college. It's their responsibility to pay that. No. You're going to dictate that policy that is projected to be $30 billion a year on the taxpayers, times 10 years. What is up with that?”
Twenty years ago, Martilli – who works as a political consultant – was in Washington as chief of staff for Democratic Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy.
“I believe the family trusted me to do the right thing for Patrick when he was having some serious issues with concerns in health and addiction," said the candidate. "And so, I went into kind of, you know, a rough period of time. And then I, you know, I got there, we were going through 9/11, that happened.”
Martilli was forced to resign in 2002 when Dave Rogers, Kennedy’s Republican opponent, accused him of failing to disclose his previous work as a lobbyist.
“I was doing work for individuals that really didn't have anything to do with, you know, congressional budget or anything like that," said Martilli. "According to one attorney, I didn't have to file papers, you know, that I was lobbying on behalf of anyone, on the work that I was doing, but they made it seem like I had to.”
Unprompted, Martilli compared his experience in Washington and with the media to Trump’s, and questioned the reality of the January 6th, 2021 attack by Trump supporters on the Capitol.
“I was in the crosshairs, just like this Trump thing," he told WAMC. "I mean, do you really think that the Capitol was fortified to prevent people from getting there and get in and do whatever when they knew a huge rally was happening? No! They left it wide open, they portrayed it as something else, and then the story is- And they're still working on it today, that there was a major insurrection, that people, you know, were killed and everything else. And we had, you know, this police officer that was bludgeoned to death by you know, angry rioters smashing him with a fire extinguisher that only proved to be false. But they held that story until April so they could keep replaying it and talk about, you know, an Officer [Brian Sicknick] that that was killed, like, purposely. Totally false. But then the story is, most people believe the story because they've already, they've seen for four months, this press attack, and they're saying, oh, yeah, that's got to be real. And in fact, it's not. And that's the Washington game.”
Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was found to have died after experiencing two strokes a day after he sustained injuries in the well-documented attack, which is not in question.
For his part, Neal has touted his work in shepherding large parts of President Biden’s domestic agenda through Congress, and says COVID relief, the infrastructure package and other bills have put the country back on the right track.
The election is November 8th.
