Until this week, the 27th Middlesex District looked like less of a race and more like a handoff: Somerville city councilor Ben Ewen-Campen was the only candidate for a seat now held by state representative Erika Uyterhoeven, who seeks to replace Pat Jehlen as she retires from the state Senate.
Then educator Olivia Gilligan-Corsetti filed organizational papers Wednesday, setting up a Democratic primary vote in September for a district that covers much of Somerville.
“Democracy needs participation, and in a district of about 40,000 people, to have one person step into a seat of power doesn’t feel right to me,” Corsetti said in a Friday interview.
Ewen-Campen said he agrees, and he welcomed Corsetti to the race. “It’s always best when voters have a real choice. I’m excited for a campaign focused on the issues that matter to our community,” he said Thursday by text. Ewen-Campen is a graduate of Swarthmore in Pennsylvania and has a doctorate from Harvard. He is a research associate at Harvard Medical School who was first elected as a city councilor in 2017.
Corsetti is a third-generation Somervillian who began public life at age 14, organizing a fundraiser in 2010 to help survivors of a devastating earthquake in Haiti. Though she studied engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, politics has always called to her: She went on to serve on the Young Democrats of Massachusetts’ executive board from 2022 to last year – but many more residents may know her from her work on constituent services in the office of former state rep Denise Provost, where she also drafted legislation, or as a field organizer in Somerville and neighboring communities for Maura Healy’s campaign for governor, followed by more constituent service work in the governor’s office. Corsetti was head of last year’s reelection campaign of former mayor Katjana Ballantyne.
Others may know her as a teacher at the Kennedy School, or just from the neighborhood. She feels her community ties are a path to understanding constituent needs as well as an eventual voter base. “I’ve already been on the campaign trail in Somerville for many years,” Corsetti said.
Her first goals as a state representative are formed not just by answering the needs of residents from desks in the offices of Provost and Healey, but by her own experiences – caring at age 8 for an older sister with endometriosis who couldn’t get doctors to take her pain seriously, and seeing the struggles others have with health care. “So many of the calls that I received in constituent services were about ’How do I navigate this system’ and just being able to help them click through it, call the right people and be a voice for them,” Corsetti said. Issues of addiction and caring for people with special needs also call out to her, along with educational matters such as oppressive use of technology; municipal infrastructure; the arts; and housing.
She has the same stress about affordability as many. “I was born and raised in Somerville. I’ve worked in the service industry for over a decade and I understand the struggles of working class people trying to afford to live here,” Corsetti said.
“My experience as a home caregiver at a very young age taught me so much – hard work, character. I bring a lot of experience of helping people, and my goal is to just make sure people have the resources they need to live happy, fulfilled lives,” Corsetti said. “That’s not to say someone else can’t do it, but the experiences I bring are different, and people should have a choice in who represents them, people who come from different backgrounds and bring different experiences.”
After years of helping others run for office, Corsetti said her decision to run clicked into place Monday as she listened to a recording of the Broadway musical “Suffs,” about the suffragettes’ fight for the right to vote – a struggle that took from 1848 to 1920. One of the songs asks, “If not me, then who, and if not now, when,” Corsetti said.
“I’ve been doing the job of helping people for a really long time, and I’m confident that I can work in the State House and bring money back to Somerville in the areas that we really need,” she said.
In the meantime, the volunteers she oversees are her own and are out gathering the 150 voter signatures she needs by Tuesday to qualify for the ballot. “The support that has flowed in, in just a day, makes me feel confident and happy to have so many people reaching out,” Corsetti said.
Until she has a campaign website, the candidate can be reached at oliviagilligancorsetti@gmail.com.
Invitation from Azeem
Cambridge city councillor Burhan Azeem, running for state Senate in the 2nd Middlesex District to replace the retiring Pat Jehlen, has been focused on in-person door knocking achieved by walking the district, which includes the cities of Somerville and Medford and parts of Cambridge and Winchester. He’s doing Medford first. On Friday he announced that he’s taking a weeklong break after canvassing 70 percent of that city – “because I’m getting married.” The May 2 wedding includes a “big South Asian dance party” at 4 p.m. that day on Cambridge Common, near Harvard Square. The public is invited. (Azeem’s proposal to Vijeta Saini was also public: It took place onstage at a summer concert on the Cambridge Crossing common in North Point.) “Bring your friends, bring your family, bring whoever you think of when we say we want to celebrate love,” Azeem said.
New Politics backs Lander
A new endorsement was touted Friday by Daniel Lander, a 34-year-old aide to Boston mayor Michelle Wu who is in his first race to unseat state senator Will Brownsberger in the Suffolk and Middlesex district covering West Cambridge, Belmont, Watertown, Allston, Brighton and the Fenway. His campaign is now backed by New Politics, a national organization that supports candidates with backgrounds in public service. “The endorsement highlights my work with AmeriCorps and for the City of Boston,” Lander said. “I’m proud to have New Politics’ support in this race. They are helping leaders all across the country who are standing up to the broken status quo and fighting for a new kind of leadership rooted in public service.” Lander has said Brownsberger, in office since 2009, is part of the body’s “inaction and inertia.”
Catching up with Ruseau
We missed that the run to replace state representative Christine Barber in the 34th Middlesex District – she’s running for Jehlen’s state Senate seat against Azeem, Uyterhoeven and others – include Paul Ruseau, a school committee member in Medford. (The district includes parts of Somerville and Medford.) Ruseau, a software engineer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, announced March 22. “I grew up experiencing homelessness and food insecurity, without access to basic medical and dental care. I know firsthand that school can be the only safe place a child has. I will carry that lived experience into every vote and every conversation at the State House,” Ruseau said, “because I know what it costs when government fails the most vulnerable among us.”
About the race districts
The 2nd Middlesex (a state Senate seat held by Pat Jehlen, in the office since 2005 but is retiring) includes the cities of Somerville and Medford; and parts of Cambridge and Winchester. Sought by: Burhan Azeem, Christine Barber, Tom Hopcroft, Matt McLaughlin, Neheet Trivedi, Erika Uyterhoeven
The 24th Middlesex (a state House seat held by Dave Rogers, in the office since 2013) includes parts of North Cambridge and Arlington and all of Belmont. Sought by: Nomita Ganguly
The 25th Middlesex (a state House seat held by Marjorie Decker, in the office since 2013) includes the central slice of Cambridge, following Massachusetts Avenue from Central Square through Harvard Square and just past Porter Square. Sought by: Evan MacKay
The 26th Middlesex (a state House seat held by Mike Connolly, in the office since 2017) includes East Cambridge and East Somerville. Sought by: Neil Miller
The 27th Middlesex (a state House seat held by Erika Uyterhoeven, in the office since 2021 but running for Jehlen’s state Senate seat) includes much of Somerville. Sought by: Ben Ewen-Campen, Olivia Gilligan-Corsetti
The 34th Middlesex (a state House seat held by Christine Barber, in the office since 2015 but running for Jehlen’s state Senate seat) includes parts of Somerville and Medford. Sought by: Will Mbah, Christopher Oates, Paul Ruseau
The Suffolk and Middlesex (a state Senate seat held by Will Brownsberger, in office since 2009 and running for reelection) includes the cities of Watertown and Belmont and parts of Cambridge and Boston. Sought by: Daniel Lander
This post was updated April 25, 2026, with information about Paul Ruseau.
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