Challenger MacKay beats incumbent Rep. Decker by a tight margin, but sees a mandate for change (updated)

In a rare upset for an incumbent state representative, Marjorie Decker was defeated Tuesday in a Democratic primary that would have likely sealed up her return to Beacon Hill for a seventh term, according to unofficial results from a Cambridge Election Commission count. 

Update on Sept. 4, 2024: Upon beginning a count of provisional ballots Wednesday, a batch of hand counts had Decker ahead by 42, which means she would keep her seat.

Instead, challenger Evan MacKay, a Harvard educator and labor organizer, is all but certain to represent the 25th Middlesex District in the state Legislature; there is no identified opponent in the November general election.

MacKay had 3,354 votes cast to Decker’s 3,314, according to the commission, or 50.2 percent to Decker’s 49.7 percent. Provisional votes are to be counted Wednesday, but the current 40-vote difference doesn’t put the election within automatic recount range, but one can be requested, commissioner chair Ethridge King said – and Decker “is a fighter.”

There are a little over 300 overseas, absentee and provisional ballots to be counted, but no one among the staff or politics watchers who stayed to the end of Tuesday’s count – begun at 8:30 p.m. and lasting until around 1 a.m. – said there was much reason to believe the balance of votes would tilt back decisively in Decker’s favor. There was also no post from the campaign or report of a concession or a challenge. The Decker campaign held a two-hour party at the Fresh Pond Beer Garden that The Harvard Crimson reported ended “with Decker and her supporters dancing and appearing to celebrate.” Decker campaign manager Ryan Telingator pointed to the votes remaining to be counted, the Crimson said.

The MacKay campaign, at a party at 730 Tavern in Central Square not far from the Citywide Senior Center, was exulting in victory at around 10:15 p.m. based on precinct reports while a formal count dragged on.

“This was a campaign where some of us from the very beginning had a belief in the impossible,” MacKay told a cheering crowd of supporters. “We showed that a grassroots movement can take on the might of the political establishment and we can win.”

Considering how hard it is to unseat an incumbent, “the margin of this election is a mandate,” MacKay said.

Decker has held the seat since the fall of 2012, after the retirement of mentor Alice Wolf. No one running against Decker since had achieved more than 14.5 percent of the district’s vote since 2014, and MacKay was her first challenger since 2018.

Left-leaning candidates

MacKay drew in younger voters via social media platforms where the incumbent’s campaign was absent, and it became clear in recent weeks that Decker was sweating this election: campaign material was dropped off on doorsteps almost daily, and volunteer calls, automated texts and robocalls came frequently. (On primary day, a half-dozen texts and at least three calls.) The MacKay campaign had been asking for a debate since April; a forum took place only five days ago because of Decker campaign delay, MacKay campaign manager Lee Folpe said.

In some ways, the election was a replay of the 1998 election of Jarrett Barrios, another young Harvardian who defeated an incumbent – Alvin Thompson – who had five terms in the House. Barrios also delivered new, younger voters to the polls on a platform that was less further to the left. Barrios is gay; MacKay identifies as nonbinary.

Folpe said the idea that drove the campaign was to “bring people into the movement – not just electing a candidate, but really building political consciousness and solidarity.”

This primary also saw a win for state Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven in Somerville’s 27th Middlesex District, according to unofficial results posted by that city’s Election Commission. She faced a challenge from Kathleen Hornby, a former aide to Decker, and the Democratic City Committee endorsed Hornby over the incumbent with some in Somerville saying Uyterhoeven was too far to the left to be effective legislator.

Yet she beat Hornby with 69 percent of the votes cast in that race: 5,705 to 2,571.

“It’s the bold, progressive policies and being more visionary and ambitious about what is possible in our state. Changing the how the state house works is very important to my district,” Uyterhoeven said. “And now we have the receipts to prove it again.”

Campaign issues

Resistance by Decker to adding hours to “Riverbend Park” by closing Memorial Drive to car traffic on Saturdays resonated with many, as well as Decker’s lack of engagement with Riverbend supporters and being shown by state documents to be advocating against it while presenting herself as neutral. The MacKay campaign’s issues of affordable housing, progressive taxation of the wealthy and government transparency benefited from Decker’s repeated votes against making legislators’ committee votes public and revelations from public financial disclosure records – namely that Decker had been adding to her $114,447 state salary with work for the Boston class-action law firm Berman Tabacco from 2016 to 2023. Her pay is listed only as being more than $100,001, the highest tier on the forms. The Boston Globe gave MacKay front-page coverage, saying that previous election years had brought “little substantive competition.”

At the August forum, Decker acknowledged that committee votes are “public but not accessible” and that she is working to improve transparency and “certainly has nothing to hide,” while saying that as a 14-year incumbent she shared the public’s frustration around State House dysfunction and has “worked to change it.” 

The pace of change wasn’t fast enough for MacKay voters, who had been opening doors to campaign volunteers since December under Folpe’s leadership.

“We came into this campaign with the idea of getting people to engage in state politics, something  a lot of people don’t pay any attention to whatsoever, and getting them to recognize the effect that it has on their daily lives and the ways they can be instrumental in changing the status quo,” Folpe said.

Campaign social media manager Clyve Lawrence delivered a big boost with communication and by turning online engagement into voters, Folpe said. “Reddit was really instrumental. It was great to do the [Ask Me Anything], because I think it allowed people to engage really directly with Evan and to have the questions answered in real time. It got a lot of people interested in the race, and I think we noticed that people were engaging on Reddit and bringing that into the real world as well – we would have people on the doors ask us about things that had only been discussed on Reddit.”

“We had maybe too much Reddit posting,” Folpe said, laughing. 

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