DEMOCRATS ACROSS THE COUNTRY are debating, finger-pointing and soul-searching over losing the White House. House Speaker Ron Mariano said the results were a “wake up call.”
Mariano’s post-election statement said nothing, however, about any need for inward reflection on the big message Massachusetts voters sent to an opaque state Legislature that same day: 72 percent backed Question 1, a measure explicitly allowing Auditor Diana DiZoglio to audit him and his colleagues, even as he and Senate President Karen Spilka questioned its constitutionality.
But it’s fair to call the message a muddled one. Voters may be dissatisfied with the Great and General Court, but most House and Senate members won reelection with little effort – in many cases because they had no opponent. That group includes Mariano.
Even Chris Flanagan, the Cape Cod lawmaker caught lying to campaign finance regulators about shenanigans involving a mailer from the 2022 election cycle, will return to the State House in January. While Jerry O’Connell, his Republican opponent and a Trump supporter, garnered 44 percent, Flanagan received more votes than he did in his first election two years ago.
That didn’t stop state GOP leaders from crowing about a “historic night” for the party because they flipped a state Senate seat, and incumbent Republicans kept their seats in a year with the White House on the ballot. But the party remains weak, down 10 Republicans in the House from a decade ago, when they had 35.
In some quarters, including the auditor’s office and the state GOP headquarters, Tuesday’s results on Question 1 might have seemed to be a shot across the bow of Beacon Hill. But unlike the reaction to the White House loss in national Democratic circles, legislative leaders here appear inclined to view talk of a need for big change as more of a suggestion than an imperative.
In Eastie, an Election Day tradition
The old boys club was the first on Tuesday to roll into the small room off Santarpio’s main dining area. Some of them were lawmakers turned lobbyists, but all were inside the East Boston pizza shop for an Election Day tradition that dates back to 1973, a gathering started and hosted by an Italian American, one of their own, the late state senator Michael LoPresti.
The new crew came next: Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Mayor Michelle Wu, City Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata.
Playing the role of host this year was Lydia Edwards, a Black woman from Michigan who won the state Senate seat in 2021 over an Italian American from Revere. Her election then was a break from the past, but in her speech to Tuesday’s crowd, she nodded to tradition. “The ones that are universal are the ones that anybody can uphold,” she said. “It’s welcoming to all, no matter where you’re from, whether you’re born here or not, what language you speak, what you look like, how much money you have. A true tradition is something everyone can uphold.”
Next to her, the side door was propped open by a worn high chair, keeping the air flowing as the wood-paneled room filled up with people.
Pressley, on her way out, noted she has been coming to the gathering since she was a Boston city councilor. “This is the best pizza in the city. Fight me, OK?” she said.
Pointing back inside, she added, “When you look in there, it is such a testament to the way in which the city of Boston has evolved. And as we were standing to take the pictures together, the elected officials in the room, so many of them are women. And the fact that this is being hosted by the first woman senator to hold this seat, is a testament of progress.”
Crypto wins big, but not in Mass.
The cryptocurrency industry didn’t come close to taking out Sen. Elizabeth Warren on election night, but overall the industry fared exceptionally well.
A number of Republicans and Democrats who have voiced support for reducing crypto regulation swept into office with the help of financial backing from the crypto industry. The biggest win came in Ohio, where Bernie Moreno, backed by $40 million from a crypto PAC called Defend American Jobs, defeated US Sen. Sherrod Brown, who chaired the Senate Banking Committee and was a leading crypto critic.
A late August report from Public Citizen said crypto corporations were by far the dominant corporate political spender this year – and that spending appears to have paid off with victories by pro-crypto candidates in Arizona, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, and Missouri. Donald Trump’s victory also gave the industry a boost, sending the price of Bitcoin to a record high.
In Massachusetts, the crypto industry didn’t fare as well. Republican John Deaton, who was critical of Warren’s push for greater crypto regulation, received support from the Winklevoss twins and Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, a crypto exchange and blockchain company. The Winklevosses and Garlinghouse made the maximum individual contributions to Deaton and a super PAC funded by the Winklevoss twins and Ripple spent more than $2 million either supporting Deaton or opposing Warren.
All that money – and a crypto donation button on Deaton’s campaign website – didn’t tilt the needle in his favor as he struggled for name recognition and ended up with just over 1.3 million votes, compared to nearly 2 million for Warren.
Mark Williams, a Boston University finance professor at Questrom School of Business, said the crypto industry’s backing of Deaton wasn’t necessarily about winning.
“The reason crypto was willing to spend millions of dollars to oppose Sen. Warren, even though the chances of winning were slim, is because they wanted to send a clear message to future candidates across the US: If you oppose cryptocurrency, we will come after you, back your opponent with significant amounts of money,” Williams said.
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