COUNCIL RACE A ‘JUMP BALL’
Political watchers say youth vote key in bid for seat
The two heavyweights in the District 2 City Council race have powerful oldguard supporters behind them, but pulling in young voters with national concerns could be the deciding factor in an area that has seen major change over the past decade.
“There’s a lot of lowhanging fruit in terms of folks you can activate, but I don’t think neighborhood tribalism cuts it,” said Kenzie Bok, a Bay Village resident and member of the city’s ONEin3 program that promotes civic engagement for residents ages 20-35.
“So many people are politically active in opposition to what’s going on in Washington. If you are a city council candidate who can make a connection to larger justice issues you have a real chance of activating people,” she added.
Both main contenders have strong bases:
• South Boston native Ed Flynn has the name recognition of being former Mayor Raymond L. Flynn’s son and the backing of Southie establishment pols like U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, state Rep. Nick Collins and Atlarge City Councilor Michael Flaherty.
• Bay Village resident Michael Kelley has a war chest full of cash and contacts from his 10 years in the administration of former Mayor Thomas M. Menino. But those old networks aren’t enough to win outright anymore, University of Massachusetts Boston political science professor Erin O’Brien said.
“If either of these old networks is going to win, the only way they’re going to win is to adapt,” O’Brien said, adding both Flynn and Kelley need to reach out to younger voters.
Cayce McCabe, who managed Linda Dorcena Forry’s successful state Senate campaign in 2013 and Suzanne Lee’s narrow loss to Bill Linehan in District 2 in 2011, said neither Kelley’s connections nor Flynn’s roots would be enough on their own to win.
“The most automatic turnout in that district is old Southie; if you run outside that, you’ve got to create more votes,” said McCabe, who is now a national media consultant at Putnam Partners. “And Flynn has to prove he’s not just old Southie. That’s not enough anymore.”
District 2 has seen a sharp increase in new voters as construction booms in the Seaport and South End hotspots. In the 2012 presidential election, 2,082 people voted in the precinct containing the Seaport, while 3,556 people voted there in 2016.
The precinct containing the Ink Block and other high-end developments saw similar voter increases, from 2,458 in 2012 to 3,587 in 2016.
But those presidential elections always get higher turnout, O’Brien said.
“The key for both Flynn and Kelley is to marshal the new residents of Southie, the Ink Block, the South End, and get them interested in the district council race,” said former City Councilor Michael McCormack, who called the race a “jump ball.”
Former City Councilor Larry DiCara said candidates would have to go unit by unit and floor by floor to pull in votes from the luxury high-rises, asking a known supporter there to throw a party for the floor and invite the candidate to work the room.
“It used to be parish against parish, but now the trenches are different trenches,” said DiCara. “These trenches are the big buildings.”