POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook: T

GRUDGE MATCHES — So much for a sleepy primary season.

Simmering feuds in the Democratic primaries for lieutenant governor and attorney general are boiling over once more as candidates criss-cross the state in a mad dash to lock up votes.

Attorney general rivals Andrea Campbell and Shannon Liss-Riordan spent the weekend criticizing each other over self-funding and super PAC spending. And that was before Liss-Riordan’s updated state campaign finance report showed that she’s now poured an eye-popping $9.3 million of her own money into her campaign.

Campbell’s supporters, including new endorser former Lt. Gov. Evelyn Murphy, the first woman to hold constitutional office in Massachusetts, are accusing Liss-Riordan of trying to buy her way into office by flooding mailboxes and putting more than $5.5 million into advertising, according to tracker firm AdImpact.

“The attorney general office shouldn’t be bought,” Murphy declared at an Arlington rally with Campbell, Assistant House Speaker Katherine Clark and Attorney General Maura Healey, the presumptive Democratic gubernatorial nominee.

But Liss-Riordan contends she’s doing what she has to do “to get the message out.” Liss-Riordan told Playbook that despite her failed 2020 bid for U.S. Senate, she “didn’t come [into this race] with a built-in audience in the political world. So we have just been making the case."

Massachusetts attorney general hopeful Shannon Liss-Riordan campaigns in Medford on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022. | Lisa Kashinsky/POLITICO

Liss-Riordan set a spending limit of $12 million for the primary as part of required filings after former rival Quentin Palfrey opted into the state’s public campaign financing program. At the time, her campaign manager, Jordan Meehan, told Playbook that cap would “far exceed what we will spend in the race.”

But Liss-Riordan is rapidly approaching that number. And outside groups wading in on Campbell’s behalf are only adding to the overall tally: super PACs were on track Sunday to cross $1 million in spending to support the former Boston city councilor. For context on how pricey this primary is, the three candidates who ran in the last open-seat attorney general race in 2014 — Healey, Warren Tolman and Republican John Miller — spent a combined $4.3 million.

The pre-primary swordplay doesn’t stop there: After Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll’s numerous trips to western Massachusetts, Longmeadow state Sen. Eric Lesser took his lieutenant governor campaign straight to Driscoll’s home turf on Sunday.

Massachusetts state Sen. Eric Lesser talks to a local activist while campaigning for lieutenant governor in Salem on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022. | Lisa Kashinsky/POLITICO

Lesser met with more than two dozen activists who are fighting the proposed redevelopment of Salem Housing Authority’s Leefort Terrace. The plan would replace 50 existing housing units for older and disabled residents with a larger complex of 100-percent affordable units that would include 50 subsidized units for those residents. Activists argue the multi-story development would be “replacing a neighborhood with a warehouse for people” and would pad developers’ pockets. Lesser came away from the meeting saying “people are being priced out” from the area.

It was, in theory, a one-two punch against Driscoll, Salem’s longtime mayor who’s built her campaign for lieutenant governor around housing affordability. It was also designed to be a follow-up to Lesser's ad trying to link Driscoll to real estate developers through the super PAC airing ads on her behalf. But Driscoll’s campaign dismissed Lesser’s visit as a “misguided ‘Hail Mary’ two days before the primary.” And no other reporters besides your Playbook scribe showed up to capture the action.

GOOD MONDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are set to bookend the final full day of pre-primary campaigning in Massachusetts. Harris will speak at the Greater Boston Labor Council’s Labor Day breakfast, while Trump will hold a tele-rally for GOP gubernatorial hopeful Geoff Diehl at 7 p.m.

TODAY — Gov. Charlie Baker returns from a personal trip to South Carolina. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu makes an announcement at the GBLC breakfast at 9:30 a.m. Secretary of state hopeful Tanisha Sullivan holds a rally with Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Boston City Councilors Julia Mejia and Ruthzee Louijeune at Kay’s Oasis in Dorchester at 5:30 p.m. Driscoll holds a volunteer appreciation event at 4 p.m. at Notch Brewery in Salem. Healey, Driscoll, Campbell and Liss-Riordan are among those attending the GBLC breakfast.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Massachusetts Playbook is going to look a bit different this primary week. Think of it as a peek into my reporter’s notebook.

Have any last-minute tips or scoops before primary day? Email me: lkashinsky@politico.com.

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YAHD SIGNS AND BUMPAH STICKAHS

— FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll has been endorsed for lieutenant governor by former Lt. Gov. Evelyn Murphy and former governor candidate Danielle Allen. Driscoll has also been endorsed by the Boston Carmen’s Union, Laborers' Local 22, LiUNA Local 133 and John Buckley, Plymouth County register of deeds.

ON THE STUMP

— TRAVEL GUIDE: Candidates are spending Labor Day weekend marching in parades, greeting people at diners and mingling at farmers markets. Their stops give us a road map of where statewide office-seekers think they can pick up votes ahead of tomorrow’s primaries. Here's a look at two key races:

The attorney general rivals are primarily charting courses through Gateway Cities, where voters are more likely to head to the polls on primary day than vote early, and in the voter-rich Boston suburbs.

Liss-Riordan also visited Pittsfield and Springfield and has been running a western Massachusetts-specific television ad. And Campbell’s now countering Liss-Riordan’s South Coast ad blitz with a radio ad airing in Fall River and New Bedford, as first reported by WPRI’s Ted Nesi.

While Campbell hit the trail with high-profile supporters — Attorney General Maura Healey, Assistant House Speaker Katherine Clark, Sen. Ed Markey and former attorney general hopeful Quentin Palfrey among them — Liss-Riordan’s big-name backers were nowhere to be seen this weekend.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (right) embraces attorney general candidate Andrea Campbell during a campaign rally in Arlington on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022. | Lisa Kashinsky/POLITICO

After casting her ballot with Liss-Riordan at her side on Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was absent from the trail for the rest of the weekend, as were current and former Boston mayors Michelle Wu and Kim Janey . But Liss-Riordan will reunite with Wu at 7 p.m. in Jamaica Plain for a toast to supporters and will hold another event with the Boston mayor on primary day, according to her campaign.

GOP governor hopefuls Geoff Diehl and Chris Doughty both made their way to deep-blue Boston on Saturday to greet potential voters outside sports games: Diehl at the Boston College football game, and Doughty at the BC game and the Red Sox game before dispersing back to more fertile vote-getting territory, with Diehl in Holden, Lawrence, Holyoke and Ludlow and Doughty in Spencer and on Cape Cod. They’ll likely cross paths at the Marlborough Labor Day parade this afternoon.

Massachusetts GOP governor hopeful Chris Doughty campaigns outside Fenway Park on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. | Lisa Kashinsky/POLITICO

THE DOWN-BALLOT RACES

AT A GLANCE — It’s not just statewide contests at stake on Tuesday. Voters across Massachusetts are also casting ballots for state senators and representatives, county sheriffs and district attorneys — and in some cases picking their next leaders in these primaries. Here are five races I have my eye on, and look for more tomorrow:

SECOND SUFFOLK SENATE DISTRICT — Two states representatives, a reverend, a community activist and the seat’s former occupant, who’s looking for a political comeback after serving prison time, are the five Democrats running in the primary to succeed state Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz , who left the seat open when she ran for governor. The race between five Black candidates all but guarantees a Black person will, for the first time in more than a decade, represent the district that cuts through the heart of Black Boston.

Of the four major candidates, state Reps. Liz Miranda and Nika Elugardo bring their legislative and community organizing experience to the five-way race, while the Rev. Miniard Culpepper is drawing on his time as HUD’s regional counsel to run a housing-focused campaign.

Then there’s Dianne Wilkerson , who lost the seat to Chang-Díaz in a 2008 primary, was convicted of federal corruption charges and spent time in prison before reemerging as a prominent activist. Wilkerson is leaning into her past — both her time on Beacon Hill and in the prison system, which she jokingly referred to as an “involuntary spiritual retreat” at a Communities of Color-sponsored debate at Morning Star Baptist Church last week.

But Elugardo argues it’s time for change: “You need a leader not from the past, not that’s familiar, not that’s a celebrity status, but somebody that is going to awaken you and awaken you to what is being done in this city now,” Elugardo told the crowd at Morning Star.

It’s perhaps the marquee legislative race this cycle, but a dearth of public polling and, until lately, media coverage, has made it one of the more unpredictable. The Boston Globe cited an internal poll showing Miranda and Culpepper in a statistical dead heat. Culpepper and Wilkerson draw from the same base of older Black voters, while Miranda and Elugardo are progressives who draw support from different corners of the district — Miranda is a Roxbury native while Elugardo hails from Jamaica Plain. More on this race from the Dorchester Reporter and from GBH News.

The Senate primary has also created a ripple effect down the ballot in Boston by opening up Miranda’s 5th Suffolk state House seat and Elugardo’s 15th Suffolk seat. Danielson Tavares, Christopher Worrell, the brother of Boston City Councilor Brian Worrell, and perennial candidate Althea Garrison are running in the 5th Suffolk Democratic primary. The four-way race in the 15th Suffolk includes Samantha Montaño, Roxanne Longoria, Mary Ann Nelson and Richard Fierro.

11TH SUFFOLK HOUSE DISTRICT — The Democratic primary for this new majority-Latino state House district — which encompasses all of Chelsea and part of Everett — is pitting Chelsea School Committee member Roberto Jiménez Rivera and Chelsea City Councilors Judith Garcia and Leo Robinson against each other. Garcia, who says she would be the first Honduran-American elected to the State House, nabbed the Boston Globe’s endorsement over the weekend. Progressive groups and climate advocacy organizations, on the other hand, are lining up behind Jiménez Rivera. The winner will face Republican Todd Taylor, a city councilor and MassGOP state committee member, in November. More on this race from the Chelsea Record.

8TH ESSEX HOUSE DISTRICT — Half a dozen Democrats are running in this open-seat race after former state Rep. Lori Ehrlich vacated the post to become a regional administrator for FEMA. Jenny Armini, a community activist and former Acting Gov. Jane Swift’s speechwriter, Diann Slavit Baylis and Theresa “Terri” Tauro hail from Marblehead, while Tristan Smith, Doug Thompson and Polly Titcomb are running from Swampscott.

Smith received high-profile endorsements from Sen. Ed Markey, former Reps. John Tierney and Barney Frank, and former Lynn Mayor Thomas McGee. And he's been forced to defend them after four of his rivals alleged he only got those nods because of “long-standing professional relationship” those endorsers have with his father, James Smith , a former state representative and partner at lobbying firm Smith, Costello & Crawford. More on this race from the Salem News.

FIRST ESSEX SENATE DISTRICT — The First Essex state Senate seat, which was redrawn during redistricting to cover Lawrence, Methuen and a slice of Haverhill, is incumbent-free with state Sen. Diana DiZoglio running for auditor. Three candidates of color are on the ballot: Lawrence City Councilor Pavel Payano, who's been endorsed by AG Maura Healey; Methuen City Councilor Eunice Zeigler, who’s also director of advancement at YWCA Northeastern Massachusetts; and Doris Rodriguez, a former compliance officer for the city of Lawrence. More on this race and other Merrimack Valley contests — including where former state representative and former Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua is trying to make another political comeback — from The Eagle-Tribune.

BRISTOL COUNTY SHERIFF — Three Democrats are vying for the chance to unseat longtime Republican Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, a Trump supporter who’s also backed by Gov. Charlie Baker. The field includes former state representative and current Attleboro Mayor Paul Heroux, Fall River-based attorney Nick Bernier and retired Somerset Police Chief George McNeil, all of whom have criticized Hodgson’s policies — particularly on immigration — and raised issues with the treatment of inmates. More on this race from the Standard-Times and New Bedford Light.

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DATELINE BEACON HILL

— “Lawmakers plan hearing on DPU oversight of MBTA,” by Bruce Mohl, CommonWealth Magazine: “A second legislative committee plans to hold oversight hearings related to the MBTA – this time concerning the role the Department of Public Utilities plays in overseeing safety issues at the transit authority."

— “House budget chief says Baker’s math right, $3B owed to taxpayers,” by Matthew Medsger, Boston Herald: “The House’s budget chief says the Baker Administration’s assertion the state took billions too much in taxes last year is accurate and that lawmakers will work to make sure taxpayers get their money back while moving forward on a stalled economic development bill. … ‘We didn’t know what the correct figure was at the end of July when we were trying to make our determinations on how to go forward with the economic development bill, which is one of the reasons why we were a little hesitant on moving that forward, but now that we do have that number the auditor will certify that and we will move forward,’ [House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz] said [on WCVB’s ‘On the Record’ ].”

FROM THE HUB

— “Unsealed court documents say 2005 sexual assault allegations against Arroyo were ‘unfounded’,” by Danny McDonald, Evan Allen and Andrea Estes, Boston Globe: “A Boston police detective in 2006 found that sexual assault allegations made against Ricardo Arroyo when he was a teenager were ‘unfounded,’ meaning they did not constitute a crime, according to documents unsealed Friday. ‘There was no crime committed,’ wrote Assistant District Attorney Tara Burdman in a Feb. 17, 2006, e-mail to an investigator about the allegations made by one of Arroyo’s high school classmates. … But the documents do not say the alleged victim lied or that the conduct she alleged — that Arroyo repeatedly pressured her into giving him oral sex when they were high school classmates — did not occur. Instead, the documents show that the alleged conduct by Arroyo did not legally constitute rape. … The documents also further undercut Arroyo’s contention that he did not know about the rape allegations until he was informed by Globe journalists last month.”

— “Arroyo: Hayden’s driver was cop who closed 2005 case,” by Sean Philip Cotter, Boston Herald: “Arroyo, responding to a question from NBC10’s Latoyia Edwards about who he thought leaked the documents about the 2005 and 2007 sexual-assault investigations into him that ultimately resulted in no charges, drilled down further on his allegations against the sitting DA.

— “Ricardo Arroyo pushes for independent investigation of ‘illegal leak,’ says he will file ethics complaint against Kevin Hayden,” by Rick Sobey, Boston Herald.

— “Ricardo Arroyo’s college emails some alumni about allegations,” by Sean Philip Cotter, Boston Herald.

FROM THE 413

— “Wilmer Puello-Mota told Holyoke Ward 2 City Council seat vacated; legal fight likely,” by Dennis Hohenberger, Springfield Republican: “The city’s Law Department formally notified Wilmer Puello-Mota in a Sept. 1 letter that his Ward 2 Council seat was vacated. ... Puello-Mota plans to take legal action against the City of Holyoke to regain the Ward 2 seat. He faces child pornography, forgery, counterfeiting and obstruction of justice charges in Rhode Island.”

CAMPAIGN ROUNDUP

— “In DA, sheriff races, reformers seek change from inside,” by Shira Schoenberg, CommonWealth Magazine: “District attorneys and sheriffs are traditional ‘law and order’ positions, inhabited by officials often viewed as tough on crime. These jobs are elected, but incumbents, particularly DAs, have often sailed easily to reelection – and sometimes chosen their successors – with little public attention. That has changed in recent years, as a growing number of liberal-leaning reformers have run for these positions, and progressive groups have begun organizing around them, as a way of changing the criminal justice system from the inside. That is evident in the current election cycle, where several reformer candidates are running, generating growing public interest. But this fall’s elections will also face a test of whether voters are actually interested in that ethos."

— “Dubious endorsement claims cloud Devaney's push for Governor's Council,” by Adam Reilly, GBH News: “When Governor’s Councilor Marilyn Petitto Devaney made her closing pitch at a recent League of Women Voters candidate forum, she began by touting the endorsements she’s received as she seeks a thirteenth term. ‘Among those standing with me: Congressman Jim McGovern,’ Devaney said, kicking off a 30-second rundown of big-name backers who believe she deserves reelection. … In fact, McGovern is not standing with Devaney.”

— “With just days before the primary, Mass. governor candidates dig in,” by Anthony Brooks, WBUR.

— “Suffolk sheriff’s race hinges on: What can a sheriff do?” by Tori Bedford, GBH News.

HEARD ‘ROUND THE BUBBLAH

HAPPY BIRTHDAY — to Nicole Herendeen of Benchmark Strategies, Michael Ratty, Jen Flanagan and Guillermo Samuel Hamlin. Happy belated to Boston City Councilor Kendra Lara, who celebrated Saturday.

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