With Pressley on the sidelines in Senate race, who benefits?

Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, and U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton at a 2018 hearing into the natural gas explosions and fires in Lawrence earlier that year.

Isaiah Thompson / GBH News

As a key strategist behind one of Massachusetts’ most historic political upsets—U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley's 2018 primary victory—our President, Wilnelia Rivera, was interviewed by GBH for her unique perspective on the dynamics of the state's races. She weighed in on what Pressley's decision not to run for Senate means for the remaining candidates, challenging the conventional wisdom:

Winelia Rivera, who was Pressley’s chief strategist when she unseated then-U.S. Rep. Mike Capuano in the 2018 Democratic Primary, also questions the assumption that Pressley’s decision elicited cheers from Markey’s camp and dismay from Moulton’s. While she thinks Markey was probably “elated” by Pressley’s choice, Rivera says, the mood was likely pretty upbeat at Moulton HQ as well.

If she were a Moulton loyalist, Rivera said, “I would have been excited, because it makes it a one on one race with Markey as opposed to diluting the votes across the state … It gives him a different shot at a path to victory. I think it increases his possibilities.”

Rivera also notes that Moulton and Markey are facing off at a time when communities like Lawrence and Fall River are experiencing a rightward shift that’s remaking Massachusetts’ electoral map.

“Some of the reliable votes that the Democratic Party has relied on statewide just aren’t as reliable, especially at the working-class level, beyond Greater Boston,” Rivera said. “And when you look at where Markey either had to really compete or won by a very close margin” — in his 2020 primary contest against Joe Kennedy III — “[it was] in gateway cities across the state. So I do think that, from an electoral perspective, the conditions for [a Moulton win] are there.”

There is, Rivera believes, one big caveat: Moulton’s ability to run an effective statewide campaign remains to be seen. Here’s another: Massachusetts Democrats may be unswayed by Moulton’s “generational change” argument and decide en masse to reward Markey for decades of progressivism in Congress. But with the primary election nine months away, and the contours of the campaign just now coming into focus, it’s a bit early to assume that’s the only way the race could play out.

Read the full article here: https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2025-12-04/with-pressley-on-the-sidelines-in-senate-race-who-benefits