Throughout this week, WAMC is hearing from voters across the Northeast as the election looms. In Massachusetts, there are plenty of big ticket items on the ballot for voters to consider – the presidential contest, a challenge to a sitting senator and multiple ballot questions. But down the ballot in a pocket of Hampden County is one of the state’s few competitive races.
Sunny Saturdays in the fall are usually an opportune time for pumpkin-picking, raking leaves and just getting out to enjoy the autumn weather.
But for thousands of residents across the Commonwealth on the first day of early voting, those seasonal activities took a backseat. Among those taking advantage was Westfield’s June Burns.
"I'm still alive, I wanted to get in here and vote - I'm 92-years-old: I didn't want to wait until election day. You never know!” she tells WAMC. “I just think it's wise. If you can get out, the weather's good, get out and vote!"
One-by-one, a small but steady stream of voters made the trip to Westfield City Hall just hours after doors opened.
Also out and about: the two candidates vying to represent most of Burns’s city and neighboring Southampton.
Across the street from city hall is a standout for Westfield Ward 3 City Councilor, Bridget Matthews-Kane – the Democratic candidate running for the 4th Hampden district.
At the same time, a few streets down, is the incumbent — Republican Kelly Pease.
“I think it's going very well,” he explains after being asked how his campaign was going. “I get good responses. You never want to get overconfident in any campaign … so I'm cautiously optimistic."
Pease is one of the state’s 25 Republican House members, a small minority compared to the 132 Democrats they share the chamber with.
Previously from Chester, he spent time as a volunteer firefighter, police officer and selectboard member. He also served in the army for two decades, eventually arriving in Westfield, a city of just over 40,000.
Pease ran for the 4th Hampden seat in 2020 and ended up winning by 1,600 votes while a narrow majority of the city opted for Joe Biden as president. Four years prior, a slightly larger majority picked Donald Trump.
Pease ran unopposed in 2022, but now, he’s contending with a well-funded, well-organized challenger in Matthews-Kane.
Both candidates have been on the hustings. One such example – a week earlier, Matthews-Kane and about three dozen supporters set up shop on the Westfield Green.
After getting her name out, by the time October rolled around, campaign finance reports indicated Matthews-Kane amassed well-over double the cash on hand her opponent had.
Her war chest includes at least one $5,000 “candidate loan to campaign check.” Even without the infusion, it’s still a sizable amount of funding.
“People have been really generous. They tell me that they really want to see me winning, and they’re willing to put their dollars where their mouth is and they’ve been very generous - I’m incredibly grateful,” she says.
Matthews-Kane has spent years as an educator, with a background that includes adult learning. With a long family history in Westfield, she branched out into politics and won a seat on the city council five years ago.
Among her top issues has been road safety. She previously told WAMC her own research and advocacy helped lead to the council reducing speeds in Westfield’s downtown neighborhoods to better protect pedestrians.
Now, she’s hoping to take that energy to Boston, with an eye on issues she’s heard from voters over the years.
“The last time I campaigned for city council, out of the blue, I started hear about affordability and affordability during this campaign has been, by far, the number one issue,” the candidate tells WAMC. “It tends to fall under a few different categories: medical costs, housing costs - those are the two main things that I've been hearing about, and people really want government to try and tackle this issue and make it more affordable to live in the Commonwealth.”
She’s also stepped up as local Democrats looked for a candidate to challenge Pease.
Maureen Groden, a Southampton resident, former selectboard member and now Matthews-Kane volunteer, tells WAMC she was grateful to see the councilor enter the race, especially after no challenger emerged in 2022.
She also voiced frustration over how, after the 2020 census, her town of 6,200 was cut out of the 1st Hampshire district – represented by Democratic Representative Lindsay Sabadosa.
“We were not happy at all. In fact, some of the people from the Democratic committee had actually petitioned the state on that,” Groden explains. “I mean, Southampton’s got 6,200 people. Westfield’s a city. We’re a town. They’re in Hampden County, in fact, the district is called the 4th Hampden district, so we are redistricted … the school system’s not the same.”
Groden, along with other Matthews-Kane supporters, also take issue with how Pease has spent his time in Boston. One of the bigger issues – an alleged lack of legislative action.
Based on the Massachusetts Legislature website, compared to neighboring lawmakers, like Sabadosa or fellow Republican Nick Boldyga of the 3rd Hampden, Pease has only directly sponsored a handful of bills. He acknowledges that but notes the number of bills he’s co-sponsored and supported is significantly higher.
“I'm very proud of my record, I work across the aisle,” Pease says. “So, one of the things that I get criticized [for], is that you didn't submit too many bills. Well … I sponsored, or co-sponsored 131 bills, so there's no sense of rewriting bills that people already are out there that you support. You get on board with them, and you work as a bipartisan effort to try to get those bills passed that are very important to you.”
Pease adds he’s also spent time in Southampton, where he received 2,100 votes in 2022, even while unopposed. A staunch supporter of rural road funding, he also points to a stalled House version of an economic development bill that packs $150,000 for a new public safety complex in Southampton, among other items for the district.
Pease-backer Tim Moran tells WAMC his candidate’s status as a Republican can be a real benefit, at least when it comes to all-important committee assignments. With so few Republicans in the legislature, those who are on Beacon Hill end up with a number of assignments via committee seats reserved for the minority party.
Moran says a first-term Democrat wouldn’t likely attain the kinds of roles Pease has.
“I believe that Kelly running as a Republican - that sets us apart down in Boston because… it’s heavily, heavily favored for the Democrats in Boston right now and in politics, if you don't do what the party wants you to do, meaning, if you don't vote the way they want you to vote, then they cut you off and don't give you funds,” Moran says. “Kelly is not susceptible to that because he's in a minority. Being in a minority also puts him on some councils that she's never going to have a chance to get on.”
As of his second term, Pease’s committee assignments include both the House and Joint Ways and Means committee. He also has a ranking minority spot on the Joint Committee on Higher Education, and seats on joint committees dealing with education as well as veterans and federal affairs.
Back at city hall, most early voters say they’re aware of the House race. Jessica B’Shara says she and her fiancé voted for Pease after running into him while he was out canvassing.
“He stopped us and asked where we lived and I'm like, ‘What are you trying to sell?’ because I wasn't familiar with him,” she tells WAMC. “And he introduced himself as Kelly Pease and he was just trying to get out there and try to get re-elected. So, we said we would do our research on him.”
Others acknowledged the race, but when asked what has their attention, ballot questions felt more pressing.
In the case of Linda Condarcuri, that means Question 2 - a repeal of the MCAS test as a graduation requirement for high schoolers.
“I never thought that should be a requirement for graduation. I thought it was a standard to see how your students are doing, but not to graduate,” she says.
In addition to voting on candidates, Wayne and Gail Hartsgrove say for them, Question 4 stands out – an initiative to legalize and regulate psychedelic substances.
“I think there’s a downward spiral - the more we legalize things that affect people mentally, then it can impair their thinking properly, their driving. It’s just going to have a snowballing effect for the rest of the culture,” Gail says.
“I would have to concur with that, really,” Wayne adds.
Asked about sharing a ballot with a number of different issues, not to mention a presidential race and a U.S. Senate contest, Matthews-Kane says it doesn’t hurt, especially its potential impact on the Southampton side of things.
“Ultimately, I think it’s a net positive, especially in Southampton, where people didn’t know me as well - they talked a lot about national issues and how that made them excited to vote,” she says.
To Pease, a higher turnout’s to be expected, adding that in an age of polarization, the contests are really about engaging those who don’t usually vote, especially when looking at the presidential race.
“If I ran unopposed today, there’s 30 percent of the vote I’m not going to get, even with no opponent, just because those Democrats will never vote for Republican and the same on the Democrat side,” he says. “So, you’re all fighting for the 40 percent in the middle that are the common sense - or I mean, not that either side don’t have common sense, but they’re the moderates, right? They want to be left alone. They want to go to work. They want to take care of their family, and they don’t want to get overburdened by regulations or inflation or whatever. They want the government just to look out for them and their kids and do a good job and they don’t want to hear all the extraneous, I don’t know, buzz topics that go through some of the political issues.”
Notably, in both Westfield and Southampton, the vast majority of registered voters are unenrolled. That’s over 66 percent in both cases - not at all uncommon in Massachusetts, where at least 64 percent share the same status.
That’s according to state enrollment data as of late October, which also showed how, in both municipalities, Democratic enrollment is only a few hundred residents higher than Republican numbers.
In the eyes of political consultant Anthony Cignoli, with hardcore, party-affiliated voters often going with their party’s candidates – the unenrolled are the bloc to appeal to.
“It's those folks throughout the district who are key in this particular one,” he tells WAMC. “Those folks will mix it up on the ballot. They might vote for Trump, and at the same time, say ‘Gosh, golly, gee-whiz – locally, I'm going to vote for Matthews-Kane.’ You're going to see some of that crossover and whatnot.”
“It is a help to be on a ballot with a popular or populist national candidate, again, whether it be Harris or Trump, and to get that right down-the-line Republican vote, Democrat vote, it happens,” he continues. “But in this instance, it's local and it's who's making the better case to the average voter in the 4th Hampden. That'll make a difference.”
Adding that the race is one of the few competitive ones in the state – most Pioneer Valley legislators are running unopposed in the general election – Cignoli says getting out the vote is as critical a component as ever – and where one candidate appears to stand out over the other.
“At this point, Bridget Matthews-Kane - it's almost as if she's running a congressional campaign: she's everywhere,” he says. “She's doing the voter ID, the GOTV, the retail politics of spending the shoe leather, knocking on doors herself. I believe the incumbent is knocking on some doors, too, but interesting to me, there's a difference between the two campaigns, which is indicative of Democratic and Republican campaigns that I see around the country.”
“Matthews-Kane, the quiet, hard work, the door-knocking, etc. - the Pease campaign, really, in a big way, going at standouts, holding out signs, waving American flags, etc. Some tied there also with … some of the Trump and MAGA supporters within the district, so you can clearly see that there's differences as to how they're campaigning.”
For now, the door-knocking and standouts continue. WAMC will have live coverage of the race and more on election night.
