Boston Mayor-Elect Is Labor Heavyweight

State Representative Martin J. Walsh was elected to the highest office in Boston—Mayor–last night after defeating Boston City Councilor-at-Large John Connolly in the first hotly contested mayoral race Boston has seen since the early 1990’s. Walsh garnered 52 percent of the vote to Connolly’s 48 percent, with a margin of 4,908 votes, with all 255 of Boston’s precincts reporting.

Walsh, a long-time labor leader, and 15-year veteran of the state legislature, is a lifelong resident of Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. His opponent, Councilor John R. Connolly, is an attorney and former teacher. Connolly was the first candidate to announce his candidacy prior to Mayor Thomas Menino announcing his retirement after twenty years in office.

The last six weeks of the race pitted two Boston natives against each other in a context the media painted as labor versus innovation. Connolly collected the support of young white-collar professionals and Boston’s business community, while his campaign emphasized Walsh, former head of the 35,000 member strong Metropolitan District Building Trades Council, would be beholden to unions as mayor. Out-of-Boston groups funded by unions, including SEIU, spent $2.5 million to support him, compared to the $1.3 million spent by education groups on Connolly’s behalf.

Walsh emphasized his own personal struggles as he persuaded a variety of voter demographics to identify with his story of redemption. Walsh is a survivor of childhood cancer, a recovering alcoholic, and a former laborer who began his career hauling rocks after dropping out of Suffolk University. Despite multiple adversities, including being grazed by a bullet one evening while drinking, Walsh went on to be a collection agent for rogue contractors at the Massachusetts Laborers Benefits Fund, and went through a detoxification program in 1995. Walsh went on to be elected to the state legislature in 1997, and completed his bachelor’s degree in social sciences at Boston College in 2009.

Relying on his blue-collar background, Walsh gained the support of former candidates Charlotte Golar Richie, Felix Arroyo, and John Barros in the weeks leading up to the general election. Target outreach to predominantly Latino and Black neighborhoods by labor organizers, the Massachusetts Democratic Party establishment, and a solid base of blue-collar workers propelled him to earn over 72,500 votes in an election with 35% voter turnout.

By: Sarah Betancourt

Sarah Betancourt is a Boston-based journalist who has written for In These Times, Open Media Boston, Spare Change News, Boston.com, the Boston Globe Environment Blog, and has had work appear in video on the National Geographic Water Currents Blog. She writes primarily about Boston politics, labor, Generation Y issues, and environmental policy.