Massachusetts has had the least competitive legislative elections in the country for most of the last decade. At least some Cambridge voters and all of Somerville’s will get choices on their ballots in local elections in 2026, as state senator Patricia Jehlen will not run for re-election and state senator William Brownsberger faces his first contested primary since 2011.
Age is the common theme in these races, at a time when Democratic voters seem frustrated by the age of their elected officials. Jehlen is 82 and has been in public service for 50 years. At the national level, U.S. senator Ed Markey, 79, is being challenged in a primary by U.S. representative Seth Moulton, 46, who has said he doesn’t think Markey should be running at 80 years old or that “someone who’s been in Congress for half a century is the right person to meet this moment.”
Brownsberger, 68, is twice as old as his declared challenger, Daniel Lander, a 34-year-old senior aide to Boston mayor Michelle Wu. (Disclosure: Lander’s mother, Lori Lander, is on the Local News Fund Advisory Board at the Cambridge Community Foundation, which has given financial support to Cambridge Day.) Lander announced his decision to run Dec. 15, saying he is focused on lowering the cost of living in Massachusetts, where he’s lost friends who move to avoid rent, health insurance, energy and child care costs that are rising faster than the rate of inflation.
“We have a generation of leadership, including my opponent, who are really comfortable with the status quo, and I am not,” Lander said in a phone interview. “To the degree that there are a lot of young people across the country who feel similar – and feel like we need more urgency to tackle the problems facing our communities – I definitely see myself as a part of that.”
At stake is the Suffolk and Middlesex District, which includes West Cambridge, most of the Fenway neighborhood of Boston, the Allston and Brighton neighborhoods of Boston, all of Watertown and all of Belmont. Lander grew up in West Cambridge’s Huron Village and went to Harvard, but lives in the Fenway with his husband; Brownsberger, who has a bachelor’s degree and law degree from Harvard, lives in Belmont and has raised three daughters there with his wife.
“I welcome the opportunity to engage with voters in an active campaign. I am eager to talk about my commitment to service, my record of delivering major reforms and the challenges and opportunities facing the commonwealth,” said Brownsberger, Senate president pro tempore and a committee chair, last week. He did not immediately reply to a request for more information.
Frustration
Lander points to that leadership as a cause for his run – because he is tired of seeing how “good bills can go up to session after session, year after year, and die.” He said he is frustrated by Brownsberger’s opposition to transfer fees on big real estate transactions and other progressive tax efforts.
This year has been one of the least productive legislative sessions on record, Lander said in a press release. In it, he breaks down the work: passage of 67 bills since January, 10 of which are legally mandated budget and appropriation items and only three more that have statewide impact. Three are ceremonial, 35 are home rule petitions or others affecting a single town or city. And there are “a surprising 17 bills pertaining to individual state employees. And the state Senate has been on vacation since before Thanksgiving.”
It’s why a record number of ballot initiatives will be decided in 2026, Lander said. “People have sort of woken up to the fact that we have a Legislature and a state Senate that is not as progressive and is not as urgent as it might be, and particularly at a time when we have no control over the levers of power in Washington,” he said.
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He’s aware of the narrative that the run against Brownsberger is at the behest of Wu; The Boston Globe said Lander’s run “could be a test of Wu’s political influence.”
“She’s my boss, but she didn’t ask me to go do this. I’ve been thinking about it for a number of years now,” Lander said. He noted that while he follows in Wu’s footsteps, he’s also worked on two campaigns for U.S. senator Elizabeth Warren and also for Stacey Abrams when she ran for Georgia governor in 2018. In addition to shared political beliefs, he has taken from them a lesson of building strong organizations in communities, door knocking to awaken people who are not already plugged into politics and “not taking anything for granted.”
“I’m excited. Now it’s about going out and talking to as many people as I can, and trying to build some momentum,” Lander said. He would also welcome a debate with Brownsberger. “If senator Brownsberger would be willing, I’m going to be there any day,” Lander said.
Lander could also get a boost from his network in Cambridge – his family. Lori Lander, an artist and co-founder of the Many Helping Hands 365 nonprofit, runs popular monthly breakfasts that bring in speakers or have attendees share poems and thoughts. His father, MIT biology professor Eric Lander, was director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under president Joe Biden and was Science Advisor to Biden and to president Barack Obama.
Daniel Lander said he was unaware of other contenders seeking a generational change locally in Massachusetts, but the first declared candidate for Jehlen’s seat representing Medford, Somerville, parts of North Cambridge and parts of Winchester is Matthew McLaughlin, a 44-year-old Somerville city councilor. Nomination papers become available Feb. 10 and are due to local registrars April 28 for races at the district or county level.
“We’ll see if other folks emerge to sort of take on the status quo here in Massachusetts,” Lander said, noting he continues to support Massachusetts officials such as Warren, who is 76, and U.S. representative Ayanna Pressley, 51, but is frustrated with U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “For folks who are in Massachusetts or across the country feeling like we need to be much more urgent and focused on defending our communities and making them affordable and great places to live – I definitely see myself with those people.”
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