Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan is asking voters for another four years by arguing she’s made the county one of the country’s safest, while her former colleague David Solet says his experience witnessing the shortcomings of her leadership from inside her office drove him to run.
The two Democrats face off Tuesday after a campaign increasingly shaped by Solet’s accusations that Ryan has failed to adequately advocate for victims of violent crime and Ryan’s counterattack that Solet would move the office in a more conservative, police-aligned direction.
With no Republican candidate seeking the office, the winner of Tuesday’s Democratic primary will be the presumptive winner of the November general election.
Ryan, who has led the office since 2013, points to Middlesex having the 10th-lowest homicide rate among U.S. counties with more than 100,000 residents, her landmark legal challenge in Ryan v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which initially blocked ICE from making civil immigration arrests in and around Massachusetts courthouses before the injunction was overturned on appeal, and criminal justice reforms she says have increased police accountability. She argues another term would allow her to tackle emerging threats including artificial intelligence-enabled crime and financial scams, improve access to mental health services and expand trauma-informed care, particularly for young people.
“I’m never satisfied with the status quo,” Ryan said. “My real laser focus is: How do we move forward on that list? How do we make ourselves even safer?”
Credit: Courtesy of the Solet campaign
Solet points to his more than two decades as a Middlesex prosecutor, including leading the office’s Cold Case Unit, winning convictions in over a dozen decades-old murder and sexual assault cases, and being named Middlesex County Prosecutor of the Year in 2025 as evidence of his experience and commitment to victims. He argues a change in leadership would bring a more proactive approach to closing gaps in state criminal law, including strengthening the dangerousness and impaired-driving laws and creating a “Crime Gun Unit” to investigate illegal firearms trafficking, because the majority of gun crime in Massachusetts is committed with out-of-state weapons.
“I could see that there were things that the Middlesex DA’s office is supposed to be doing to protect people, and was not doing,” Solet said. “I had to figure out what I thought was right, and what I thought was right was to resign from the job that I loved and was good at in order to take the office in a different direction.”
Solet says the breaking point came from a decades-old Bedford rape case he investigated while leading the Cold Case Unit. Using forensic genetic genealogy, he said he identified the alleged attacker decades after the 1988 rape, but Massachusetts’ 15-year statute of limitations prevented prosecution. He claims Ryan declined his request in early 2025 to publicly push lawmakers to change the law, convincing him she had become too cautious about taking politically difficult positions. Solet resigned in September and announced his campaign in December.
Ryan disputed Solet’s account, noting that legislation creating a DNA exception had been proposed repeatedly for about 15 years without passing.
“I could have been waving my magic wand as the omnipotent pseudo legislator,” Ryan said. “All of that’s just a story.”
Ryan said the turning point came when the Bedford survivor, who initially did not want to pursue charges after more than three decades, publicly advocated giving other survivors that choice. The Legislature changed the law this summer, allowing rape prosecutions beyond the usual statute of limitations when DNA evidence identifies a suspect.
“I don’t deserve the credit. My opponent certainly doesn’t deserve the credit,” Ryan said. “If anyone is the hero in this story, it is that woman.”
The candidates’ sharply different coalitions have become another point of contention. Solet has amassed endorsements from law enforcement organizations, including the Massachusetts Police Association and New England Police Benevolent Association, while Ryan has emphasized support from Democratic elected officials, including Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, and has pledged not to accept campaign contributions from police unions.
“I think it is striking that every single one of the public safety organizations that have weighed in are with one side, and that literally zero of them are with the incumbent district attorney of three full terms,” Solet said.
Ryan argues accepting financial support from police unions creates a potential conflict of interest for a district attorney whose office is responsible for investigating police misconduct. She also points to the Massachusetts Police Association and New England Police Benevolent Association’s past endorsements of President Donald Trump, as recently as the 2024 presidential election, for evidence of a broader ideological divide.
“The fact that he is so much more conservative than where we have been, that is why the police unions are supporting him,” Ryan said.
Solet rejected the implication that those endorsements reflect his politics, noting that he supported Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024 and arguing that public safety “is not fundamentally about partisan politics.” He said he respects police, firefighters and corrections officers “no matter who they vote for.”
Ryan also argues Solet would weaken police accountability by ending a policy she established in 2018 requiring a judicial inquest whenever a person dies as a result of police use of force (a process currently unfolding after the officer-involved fatal shooting last Friday). Solet confirmed Friday that he would not continue the policy, arguing that inquests are unnecessary when the evidence clearly shows an officer’s use of lethal force was justified.
“The ‘all inquest, all the time’ policy that the incumbent district attorney has imposed is foolish and was designed to insulate her from criticism,” Solet said. “There is a reason no other DA’s office in the state has such a policy.”
Like many of Tuesday’s primary contests, the Middlesex DA’s race pits a longtime incumbent’s experience and record against a challenger’s call for new leadership and new ways of doing things. Whichever voters choose will be responsible for shaping the criminal justice system in the state’s most populous county.
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