Just over 59 percent of Boston Democratic Socialists of America members voted Feb. 8 to endorse Somerville state representative and DSA member Erika Uyterhoeven for state Senate, a few votes short of the 60 percent required. Despite previously telling DSA she wouldn’t run without an endorsement, Uyterhoeven took the majority vote as a mandate and announced her campaign for the 2nd Middlesex District on March 2.
That razor thin margin will prevent her from getting the organization’s full cadre of door-knockers and field operators in a bid to replace state senator Patricia Jehlen, who is stepping down.
“I feel immensely humbled to have received an overwhelming majority of support from DSA members for my endorsement,” Uyterhoeven wrote in a statement to The Independent on Wednesday, adding that she is proud to be a democratic socialist and member of the organization and will continue to work with it on a “shared fight to get ICE out of Massachusetts, pass rent control and tax wealthy corporations to fix the MBTA and fund our public schools.”
The DSA helped propel Uyterhoeven’s political career with an endorsement when she first ran for the state Legislature in 2020, and again in 2022 – but not in the most recent races.
“Given it was so close, with DSA not weighing in on the Senate race at all, but with a record-breaking number of DSA members voting in support, I decided to move forward with running for state Senate,” Uyterhoeven wrote.
Joe Whitcomb, communications coordinator for the Boston DSA, said that Uyterhoeven is “free to make her own decisions,” adding that the group and representative remain in communication.
“Every voter has their own reason,” Whitcomb said, but the views of the almost 41 percent who opposed endorsement generally boiled down to organizational capacity issues, not disagreement over policy. That internal argument was laid out in opposing essays two days before the vote in the Boston DSA’s news outlet, Working Mass.
“Confronting uncomfortable truths is not optional if we want to win,” wrote Boston DSA co-chair Tefa Galvis in their antiendorsement essay. Galvis emphasizes the Boston organization’s lack of consolidated power relative to New York City’s, which recently elected socialist superstar Zohran Mamdani as mayor and has more than a dozen candidates in the state legislature. Massachusetts, by comparison, has just one: Uyterhoeven. Without a bigger base and embedded candidates, a campaign might take too many resources. “The original goal was to have a [DSA] bench by now,” Galvis wrote. “We do not.” (State representative Mike Connolly of Cambridge and Somerville left in 2023 when the organization threatened to expel him over issues of endorsement and ideological purity. “It’s going to be a dead-end road if the left continues down this path of a circular firing squad,” Connolly told WBUR.)
The DSA could consolidate resources around 25th Middlesex District Democratic candidate Evan McKay. The former Harvard graduate student union president ran for the seat with an organization endorsement in 2024 but lost by 41 votes to incumbent centrist Marjorie Decker. McKay will go up against Decker again in the Democratic primary Sept. 1, and Galvis argues the capacity for a successful campaign is vital – two losses in a row risks the perception of an unserious candidate.
Still, a majority of Boston DSA members didn’t buy the argument. In his proendorsement essay, Working Mass chair Dan Albright wrote that “Campaigns don’t only consume capacity. They can also generate it.” Whitcomb described the proendorsement argument as stressing a need to build upon the existing bloc that is Somerville, a progressive city where the DSA has a strong base.
Albright also argues that visibility is needed. “If DSA is not putting forward as many strong candidates as it reasonably can,” he wrote, “it risks being seen as missing in action.” There is no no mention of the organization on Uyterhoeven’s campaign website.
Uyterhoeven faces a crowded Democratic primary, with Cambridge vice mayor Burhan Azeem, state representative Christine Barber, Somerville city councilor Matt McLaughlin and Winchester School Committee member Tom Hopcroft running for the seat.
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 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
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
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
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