Amid statewide contests, like Sen. Ed Markey besting Congressman Seth Moulton in the Democratic Senate primary, western Mass. was home to a number of primaries over seats on Beacon Hill.
WAMC kept track of those races Tuesday night, as did Western Mass Politics and Insight Editor-in-Chief Matt Szafranski. He spoke with WAMC about some of those races, as well as the Congressional 1st district primary that featured Rep. Richie Neal fending off a challenge from newcomer Jeromie Whalen.
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Matt Szafranski: I think that the results were, more or less, what I had expected overall in a very global sense. I'll be interested to break down the individual towns and maybe even some of the precincts when that data becomes fully available in a week or so from the Secretary of State.
But … the result was not super surprising. I thought there would be some decline in turnout in Neal-heavy areas. Contrary to a lot of you know presumptions, high turnout actually benefits Neal.
That was the case six years ago against Alex Morse, and I think it would have been the case here as well – it would have had a slightly wider margin, but there's certainly a pattern that you can see in the results that does map onto some of the other national results where very engaged, often wealthier areas are, for whatever reason, eager to replace the incumbent in some cases, and that does seem to be the pattern in this race, as well.
Despite Jeromie Whalen's best efforts, he could not storm the Chicopee-Springfield fortress particularly effectively, and in the end, that probably is the ballgame for that race. Complicating matters further? [Whalen] did not do as well as I thought he might have done in the Berkshires and without the Berkshires, there's just no path for somebody outside of Hampden County.
James Paleologopoulos: So, I was following your commentary throughout the night. I recall the path that you described for Whalen included the Berkshires, as well as running up numbers in communities like Easthampton, South Hadley and Belchertown.
We should note that this is probably the closest primary Neal has had in quite some time - about eight percentage points [was the difference] as of Wednesday morning.
Richard Neal had his closest primary ever by margin yesterday in #MA01. With much of the vote reported, he's up about 8 points, 54%-46%. His most recent close call came in 2020, when he won by 16. pic.twitter.com/MwV5ScAcsY
— Geoffrey Skelley (@geoffreyvs) September 2, 2026
This, after Whalen spent a lot of time around the district with a very progressive pitch - Medicare for All came up a lot, the Green New Deal came up a lot - as well as wanting to get away from accepting political action committee dollars, something Whalen has accused Neal of doing a little bit too much of.
Clearly, Whalen built a following, but broadly speaking, looking across the district - not just Democrats - how far does a message like that resonate?
Szafranski: Broadly? No, I don't believe it does. I think that for a lot of people… this is the thing: Neal has never said this explicitly, but I believe that for the vast majority of people, at least in Hampden County - I just don't know the Berkshires well enough to speak to it… but some of your colleagues might get this sense as well…. a legacy, a little bit of when John Olver represented that area … the idea that the state does not give us enough attention, but the federal government does, and it's because we do what we have to do to make sure that happens.
This is something that I think would be happening on a subconscious level, if it's happening at all. I recognize that it's not a… nobody talks about it in these terms, but I do think that there is something to the idea that we do have somebody that's kind of sort of looking out for our interests when we don't feel like we have it in our own state, and that, I think, is very powerful for the people in the Greater Springfield area, because if you don't feel like you have the same amount of agency and you don't necessarily have as much money or as many resources.
Paleologopoulos: [Regarding] that dichotomy… of Boston and Western Mass vs. D.C. and Western Mass - as we look at the various state house primaries that went on Tuesday night, [there was] a lot of messaging about being a better facilitator for resources, getting [them] from Beacon Hill to Western Mass - that's a common thread in a lot of these races.
I want to hone in on probably one of the more compelling ones, just in terms of the sheer number of players, the 11th Hampden district. We saw, yet again, State Representative Bud Williams see a challenge from Johnny Ray McKnight, a middle school teacher who has run for a number of roles in Springfield in the past. In addition to that, we also saw Nicole Coakley, a mental health therapist and activist. If you want to get into the finer details, there was also a write-in campaign from Donnell Wright.
Ultimately, Williams prevailed, but when you add the number of votes that McKnight and Coakley collected, it seems like a majority of voters in the district wanted to go in a different direction than Williams.
We should mention this district is in the center of Springfield and before Bud Williams was first elected, - and he's been reelected multiple times over the last decade - it was represented by Civil Rights and community activist Benjamin Swan, who recently passed away, who did a lot of work for this stretch of Springfield that encompasses a number of the city's Black residents.
Szafranski: I think the big question, once we knew it became a three-person race was “[is] Nicole Coakley going to take votes away from McKnight or was she going to take votes away from Bud Williams?”
And in the end, I think the answer ended up being “both.” But it probably came to harm McKnight more at the end, because … there is very clearly a kind of debate … [that Springfield’s] Black community… it's political leadership, it's leaders and so forth, there's a time of flux since the last of the Civil Rights-era generation, leaders from Springfield, have passed away and… there was this very strange attempt to try to paint Bud Williams as a successor to it.
And, I'll be honest, I don't know what kind of activism Bud Williams did in his younger days, and, whatever he did, I certainly wouldn't want to take away from, but there was an impression that some people were trying to automatically declare him the successor to Ben Swan, and that created a whole lot of consternation.
So, there's not a whole lot of likeness of mind within that community and I think there are a number of people who would have been fine to have seen Bud Williams lose to just about anybody.
For my money, I would say that … it certainly leaves Williams vulnerable for the foreseeable future. I mean, I don't know how many more terms he has in himself. I believe he's in his late 70s and possibly pushing 80 - Not that that's been an impediment for some politicians.
James Paleologopoulos: I want to talk more about generational change in a second, but before I do, we should point out Bud Williams has prevailed multiple times now. It's to a point where he enjoys what seems to be a great deal of name recognition. When WAMC recently spoke with him, he brings up that he's been able to bring a great deal to Springfield from Boston. He also [says he] has the ear of Governor Healey and the House Speaker when need be.
I do want to ask, what do you think keeps a lot of these district households voting for Bud?
Szafranski: Part of it is just the natural incumbency advantage.
I mean, there are also a lot of people who are - to the extent that there is a political machine in Springfield … and I really loathe to use that phrase because it's just not as big as it was - it's not even fair to call it a machine.
But there is a group of people who will go out and crank out the vote for the person that's their guy and some of these people work for Bud Williamses. Others are just longtime hangers-on that will call a dozen or so people who know a dozen or so people, and so… there's that anchor as well.
Then there's also [the fact that] Bud Williams does [favors] - there's a number of people who he knows, that he's met, that he's done favors for - not favors even in a political context, but they just always will vote for him thereafter. The reasons that people don't want him there just completely roll off his supporters' backs and so, he endures.
Paleologopoulos: With that in mind, there's a generational change element in that race, just like with the 1st Congressional district, and so too in the 12th Hampden, just to the southeast of the 11th Hampden.
There, we saw Michael Lachenmeyer, a progressive activist and organizer known throughout the Pioneer Valley - I know him from his days as a member of the Support Our Schools PAC in Northampton - he mounted a challenge against State Representative Angelo Puppolo Jr. - a former Springfield City Councilor and [now] dean of the delegation for Western Mass.
Ultimately, it was pretty one-sided result for Puppolo, about 64%-36% What's your sense coming out of this race?
Szafranski: Full disclosure: Michael Lachenmeyer is a former intern at Western Mass Politics and Insight.
I'm not surprised by that result. I mean, that district might be able, because of redistricting, it might be able to tolerate a much more left-leaning candidate such as Lachenmeyer, but the problem is is that Puppolo, despite criticisms of him - and they're not all invalid – he is kind of understood to be the probably one of the better-connected members of the delegation from Western Mass, particularly from the Greater Springfield area.
And in the House because … if there's something that is like really important, that needs to get done, he would probably be the best conduit to leadership in the House of Representatives. And I mean, that's partly a time [in the legislature] thing.
So that has given him a lot of credibility, a good foundation in his district. He lives in Springfield. He's from Springfield originally, so there isn't a city suburb split in the same way there could have been, although Lachenmeyer did grow up in Wilbraham (another part of the 12th Hampden), so… I think that what you saw there was - in some ways, a parallel to the congressional race.
If the congressional race didn't have all these far-flung areas, if it was much more concentrated in just the Greater Springfield area, you would have seen a margin probably very similar to that in the end. I mean, Puppolo did outperform Neal in some precincts, but even so, it's the same idea, where people know you’re here, see that you're here, and they see the fruits of your labors.
And I think that that's kind of just where it begins and ends. It's not as persuasive an argument in those circumstances – [pitching] “Here's a laundry list of progressive policy I want to have passed and I'm sure you support it too.” People are like “Well, yeah, but you know, we got that community center built [via the other guy].”
Paleologopoulos: So, as we're talking, it's currently about 9:50 in the morning on Wednesday, Sept. 2, a day after the primaries. Some reporters haven't slept still, but that's not important - they made their choices.
What is important is we should note that one of the more interesting races we're following is up in the 1st Franklin district.
No incumbent there - it's Corinne Coryat, the former chief of staff of former state representative Natalie Blais, in a contest with Lora Wondolowski, the Greenfield City Council president.
85% of the vote has been counted so far - there are some more rural towns that have not yet sent their results into the system. Wondolowski currently has a nearly 100-vote lead, according to The Greenfield Recorder.
I think in that district, if you win the seat, you're going to be spending a lot of time touring farms, advocating for them, as well as on a number of rural issues in Boston.
Corinne Coryat appeared to be 100 votes behind Greenfield City Councilor Lora Wondolowski in the Democratic contest.
Szafranski: A couple of things were happening [in this race]. One is that this is the first time the district is open since it was heavily-reconfigured after redistricting in 2020.
But, there are some interesting echoes of some of the fight that was happening in 2018, and arguably, Blais was able to consolidate what her critics would call the more establishment side of the vote and prevailed and proceeded to serve for seven years.
I think that you might have seen some echo of this - it was interesting when Corinne first came in - there was a perception that she would be more or less the heir-apparent, and there were a number of people that were run looking at running for this seat and it ended up only being her and Wondolowski.
That did change the race because one-on-ones are obviously much simpler as we were just talking about in Springfield, but it did seem to have the effect of consolidating a different perspective in that race, and it's also interesting that it came from Greenfield, the big town, so to speak, in that district, which is split between two state rep. districts.
Nevertheless, Wondolowski was able to consolidate a lot of support across the district, and I think it did partly reflect a little bit of a … slightly more progressive outlook.
I've heard from other people in the Upper Valley, who are not necessarily looking at things ideologically all the time, that Wondolowski is a serious person - she's been in the trenches in a lot of issues - it doesn't surprise me that she was able to mount this serious campaign and may very well prevail. But as you say, there's still votes to be counted and eventually, town clerks will crank them out to us.
Paleologopoulos: We should also mention Wondolowski is also the founding executive director of the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters - she has a lot of experience in the activist space.
We should also note that whoever wins that race would go up against independent Amy Lavallee of Whately in the general election.
And, of course, in the 1st Congressional district we have Nadia Milleron with her independent bid against Neal. In the case of the 11th Hampden and 12th Hampden, I'm not aware of any serious general election challenges, so I think Puppolo and Williams are effectively shoo-ins.
However, that's not the case in another race we've yet to discuss – the 5th Hampden Democratic primary in Holyoke and part of Chicopee. We saw Dori Dean, who has long been involved in Holyoke politics, helping with campaigns and organizing, take a stab at running for the seat that's currently occupied by Pat Duffy.
The result was actually akin to the Puppolo-Lachenmeyer race. In fact, Duffy seemed to have even more of a lead - I think was 79% versus Dean's 20-21%, just going off of AP reporting. We should be clear, all of these numbers are coming from the Associated Press.
But anyways, Duffy prevailed by a wide margin. There was some platform overlap - I mean, these are both candidates that take clean air and redevelopment in the Paper City seriously. They're also fairly progressive from what I can tell. Both vying for more resources for Holyoke and part of Chicopee from Beacon Hill.
I do vaguely recall that there was some intrigue or surprise among folks in Holyoke - maybe not voters, maybe you know other elected leaders - but just some degree of intrigue over Dori Dean stepping in and why.
Szafranski: It’s interesting that you raise that their positions are very similar, but in a sub context, there's a very clear - I don't want to say conflict exactly - but there's some opposition to a lot of municipal issues that have been happening in Holyoke over the last year, and that did appear to frame a lot of Dean's raison d'être for running.
I don't know how much that could really translate into a Democratic primary. The other thing is that even though Pat Duffy would have had to have sent some of these [municipal petitions] to the legislature to vote on, that had been happening in Holyoke government, she's not a direct actor in these local municipal debates in the same way that the mayor or the city council are, and so, I think for a lot of voters, it would be very hard to understand why that's even relevant to that kind of campaign.
I mean, there's also a point degrees to which it just kind of it didn't feel like a normal Holyoke campaign. Dean declined to participate in the Holyoke Taxpayers Association debate, which … even though it's a conservative-leaning organization, it's kind of like a must-stop for anybody who's running for something in Holyoke. I have no doubt in my mind that that may very well have cost her votes that would have been available to her.
Nevertheless… Pat Duffy has been very active in things for a very long time.
She was [former State Rep.] Aaron Vega's aide - that's her [5th Hampden] predecessor and she's been on a number of boards and commissions in town. Everybody knows her and I think, for the most part, a lot of people trust her.
Paleologopoulos: To reiterate, a common thread between the 5th Hampden and 1st Franklin in the - Pat Duffy is now going to face Jose Candelario Gonzalez, an independent challenger, in the general election.
I actually ran into Jose at Jeromie Whalen's result watch party last night. So, WAMC listeners, you will hear from him one way or another.
With that in mind, Matt – one last thing I'll bring up. This has been a long 20-something minutes. This has been a quick 20 minutes for us - the listener, I’m not quite sure, but thank you for bearing with me.
I do want to [post] this: in the grand scheme of things, even with some of the incumbents being flipped, it wouldn't have necessarily translated to a sea change on Beacon Hill, would it?
Szafranski: I think that's probably right. I mean, there certainly somebody like Lachenmeyer who, I think, might be more eager to challenge leadership, but … we've also seen people matching his profile who have learned to work within the system.
I mean… to some extent, the biggest things that could happen on Beacon Hill that would be helpful would just really be loosening up the grip on power itself.
You know, there are some people that look fondly on the past, when things would just come up for a vote and you vote for it or you wouldn't vote for it… and now, there's kind of this expectation that you need you know unanimity among Democrats, and even in sometimes unanimity across Democrats and most of the Republican caucus.
But you're right - overall, I don't know that any of these races would have really changed any of these dynamics if they had gone the other way. I think there's very much a feeling in these districts that there were local issues, local feelings - whether real or perceived – [of] failures to produce that motivated these campaigns, that underpinned their arguments and ultimately, probably, had resonance with voters to the extent that the races were competitive at all in the final analysis, as opposed to any real desire to shake up Boston in a statewide sense.
Paleologopoulos: With all that in mind, I should note we're already looking at some pretty interesting races developing in Hampden County [come November]. We've got the 4th Hampden with Kelly Pease, a Republican, once again facing a Democratic challenger - Colby Hoffman. Then in the 3rd Hampden, we have another Republican Nick Boldyga, who is actually facing two challengers: Tom Hendrickson, a Democrat from Agawam, and Jason Perron of Southwick, Mass.
Until then, Matt, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.
Szafranski: Thank you!
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A shorter version of this story aired during Midday Magazine on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026.
Since the airing of this piece, as of 3 p.m. Wednesday, with 99% of the vote counted in the 1st Franklin primary, Lora Wondolowski appeared to be leading fellow Democrat Corinne Coryat by just under a hundred votes.
