Write-in candidates add competition to sleepy legislative election season

On a tree-lined street in Byfield, on the North Shore, Mark Tashjian stood on the porch of a house.

No one was home Wednesday morning, so Tashjian, a Republican candidate for state representative, introduced himself remotely to the person who answered the video intercom. He also promised to leave a hanger with his theses on the door.

Tashjian was eager to meet with everyone in the county (more than 40,000 people) and make sure they knew they could share their concerns.

This is a big goal in a short time frame.

“We have a lot of volunteers, a lot of passion and energy, and so we’re going to make this happen,” said Tashjian, a polo club owner from Georgetown.

For Tashjian and several other candidates who earned their seats in the Massachusetts general election through successful primary campaigns, the nine weeks between them are the only time they campaign as official candidates, putting their names on the ballot.

Candidates wishing to run for office in Massachusetts typically must prepare months before the election. Nomination papers became available in February and had to be returned to local officials by the end of April, along with 150 voter signatures for House candidates and 300 for Senate candidates.

An alternative is to run with recording. These candidates are running without filing nomination papers and without having their name appear on the ballot. To become their party’s general election candidate, write-in candidates must receive more votes than any other candidate and at least as many votes as the number of signatures they would have to collect to get on the ballot.

Tashjian is running against Rep. Christine Kassner, a first-term Democrat from Hamilton who turned the seat blue when she defeated the incumbent, Republican Rep. Lenny Mirra, by one vote.

In another recently flipped district, Democrat Sheila Dibb is hoping to win back her party’s seat in the central Massachusetts Senate. Spencer Republican Peter Durant broke a decades-long Democratic streak by winning the 2022 special election.

A former member of the Rutland Board of Selectmen and a self-described “municipal fan” who says she wants to give her slice of the state a say on Beacon Hill, Dibb said her plan ahead of the election was to spend a full day in each of the 22 communities. district points.

“And we’re sending out as many mailers as we can afford to make sure that most voters know they have a choice — because maybe a few months ago they didn’t,” she said.

Massachusetts traditionally has some of the least competitive state legislative elections. For the fifth straight cycle, election site Ballotpedia ranks the Bay State as
the last one in the country in this year’s State Competitiveness Index.

Heading into the September 3 primaries,
nearly two-thirds of Massachusetts’ 200 legislators were on track for another term without a challenger, leaving millions of voters with no choice as to who would represent them on Beacon Hill.

Dibb, Tashjian and the other candidates on the November ballot through the registration process have changed that dynamic a bit by adding more contested races.

Of the six contenders who won their party’s nomination through campaigns, one, Westport Republican Christopher Thrasher, is vying for the open seat. Five others, all Republicans except Dibb, are challenging incumbent lawmakers who were otherwise unopposed.

On Cape Cod, Jerry O’Connell of Yarmouth is running against Rep. Dennis Chris Flanagan, the subject of a state campaign finance investigation earlier this year that revealed he
fabricated information surrounding the campaign mailer.

Wayland Republican Town Committee Chair Virginia Gardner is challenging five-term Sudbury Rep. Carmine Gentile, while Dasha Videira, who heads the Franklin Town Republican Committee, is trying to unseat Sen. Becca Rausch, a Needham Democrat.

Incumbents in Massachusetts are rarely defeated and are often helped to defend their seats.

Gov. Maura Healey, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and several state legislators joined the Women for Kassner reception in September, with Healey’s campaign describing Kassner, Tashjian’s opponent, as a “constant advocate for the North Shore.”

Durant, who is being challenged by Dibb, spent nearly twice as much as she did in September and ended that month with nearly three times as much money in the bank, campaign finance reports show. republicans
hailed his victory in snap elections last year as a sign of momentum and interest in greater partisan balance in the State House, and current GOP lawmakers are among its recent donors.

Dibb said she first had conversations about running for Senate in June at the state Democratic Party convention. Before Durant
flipped the central Massachusetts Senate seat red last year it had been represented by a Democrat for more than 50 years.

She said running in the election made sense to her because campaigning “wasn’t on my radar a few months ago.”

“I think this is a district with a lot of strong democratic opportunities and a lot of people who would do a wonderful job,” Dibb said. “Is it possible that these people were oriented towards a national race? Is it possible, and maybe I’ll throw it out there, that Boston in particular looked at this area and almost thought it should be written off as being purple or even, dare I say it, red? And I just don’t think that’s true.”

Tashjian said he filed to run in the primary because of the hurdles of getting on the primary ballot.

“Being new to the political process, which I think is my strength rather than being a lifelong politician, was also my weakness where I missed one of the steps so I ended up having to run as a write-in “, he said.