Earlier this week, Massachusetts Congressman Richard Neal of the 1st District beat Independent challenger Nadia Milleron – paving the way for the Democrat’s 20th term in Congress.
Primed to retake the House Ways & Means Committee gavel next year, Neal spoke with WAMC about what lies ahead for a new Democratic majority – and what his party’s midterm wins meant.
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While his race was not called within a minute like Gov. Maura Healey and Sen. Ed Markey’s contests, Neal’s reelection bid saw a similar margin of victory.
With about 94% of the vote counted as of Thursday morning, the former Springfield mayor appeared to be leading the Sheffield, Mass., attorney by about 65%-35% - not far off from 2024’s margins.
“Well, I was very pleased - certainly, the magnitude of the victory was encouraging,” he said of the win, which included a 3:1 margin in the city he led over 40 years ago. “It was across the congressional district - through all the counties, and indeed, the biggest cities and smallest towns. It was a very consistent victory.”
Speaking with WAMC a day after the election, Neal added there wasn’t much to say about his own race beyond that – indicating that plenty had been said on the campaign trail.
Instead, he emphasized his own party’s national midterm feat – House Democrats possibly securing a 50-seat majority, according to the New York Times, with a Senate majority to boot.
“The breadth of this victory was most extraordinary - I don't think anybody, three months ago, would have said we were going to win a seat in Kansas - that we were going to win a seat in Texas… South Carolina and what six months ago looked like a pretty substantial reach for us in Iowa, and we won them all,” he said while final results in Mississippi and Alaska were still being settled. “We picked up seven seat - I did think that [Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod] Brown would win. I thought the trend in his election always was pretty positive, and I think interestingly enough, [Texas Senate Candidate James] Talarico was never behind in one poll since the beginning of September… because it still remained close in the polling, the question was: ‘who would show?’”
Neal is due back in Washington, D.C., next week for the start of a lame duck session – one that Politico reports will more than likely include must-pass legislation being tackled including “funding the government to avoid a pre-holiday shutdown.”
There’s also the matter of getting a defense authorization bill done, with signs that the White House may be seeking items from its wish list, like a supplemental spending request that includes funds for the war with Iran.
That, and funding for the president’s controversial ballroom project, Politico reported, citing a retiring Republican House member. Coincidentally, the same day as the report, President Donald Trump opted to promote his ballroom project in the wake of Tuesday’s results. Neal was less than amused.
“I think the public came to believe that the vanity projects that the president embraced - whether it was the Kennedy Center, painting horses gold on bridges, proposing new arches … the day before the election, holding a press conference at the [Lincoln Memorial] Reflecting Pool … saying that it was due to vandalism when everybody knows that's not the case - and then today, doing what he's done… I think people came to believe that those projects, those vanity projects, were more important to him than gasoline prices… diesel fuel and what the war in Iran was doing to the American consumer.”
It's the latter of which that Neal believes his party should remain focused on heading into a new congress – affordability and restoring what’s been cut and slashed by the Trump administration and what’s slated to be reduced further under the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.
The Massachusetts congressman also said he’s confident New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries will take on the mantle of House Speaker.
Neal also appeared to echo some of Jeffries’s recent comments - that while oversight will be essential - there are other priorities beyond launching investigations into the Trump administration.
“I think that we should do, through the normal course of action, the oversight responsibility that the Constitution requires- but simultaneously, we should present a positive agenda for the American people that deals with the issues of affordability, that deals with the issues of Social Security - that makes sure that pensions are secure,” Neal explained. “This victory that we had was based on a lot of issues - not the least of which was the ability to deliver for the American people. The concern I have is that - even in the Ways and Means Committee, I'm interested in getting to the bottom of what DOGE did - but I'm also interested in extending the Affordable [Care Act] tax credits. I want to reverse the president's cuts to our hospitals. I want to make sure that Social Security is solvent. So, there is an oversight committee. That's their job. They should function as the Constitution requires. But I don't think that that should alone supersede our responsibilities to governance.”
