


You can stick a fork in the race to fill the vacated 9th Suffolk seat, as it was all but done before the primary ended and despite the special election still being weeks away.
Nearly a full month before some Boston voters will go to the polls to make their choice for representation in the Massachusetts State House official, John Moran, the leading and essentially unchallenged Democratic candidate, held an election night watch party in the South End to celebrate his victory in Tuesday’s primary and, for all intents and purposes, the race itself.
Moran will still need to be voted into office during the May 30 special election to replace Healey Administration Veterans’ Services Secretary John Santiago, who resigned from the State House to take that job, but with no Republican challenger to speak of the South End resident’s success is all but assured.
According to his staff Moran, a self described housing advocate and an Associate Director at Cambridge based biotech firm Biogen, began the day by voting before stopping at polling stations to greet the voters from the district he will almost certainly soon represent.
He told the Herald a lot of the voters he has met have expressed their concern about the cost of living in the crowded district, with many especially worried over the availability of affordable housing. Those problems, he said, will be chief among the challenges he hopes to tackle when sworn in.
“Particularly on the homeownership front,” he said. “Affordable ownership, trying to influence things like the Commonwealth Builder Fund that can help middle class families put a roof over their head and build some equity, but also just making sure that we’re supporting the policies that are in place throughout the city and bring up the housing stock of all kinds.”
Moran’s primary victory was made easier last month, when Amparo “Chary” Ortiz suspended her campaign for the seat amid “personal and family matters,” though too late to have her name removed from the ballot.
The 10th Suffolk House seat, vacated when former Rep. Ed Coppinger resigned to lead the government affairs department at the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, will also be decided on May 30.
It was unclear as of publication which of the three Democrats vying for that seat would secure victory in the primary, though there too there is no Republican opposition candidate to compete with in the following special election.