Episode 170: Social Distancing Studies

2/24/21-- A year ago this week marks one of the last weeks before a state of emergency was declared in Massachusetts and self-isolation began. In that time, schools throughout the state have implemented remote learning for at least a portion, if not most of that time when the school year was in session. Massachusetts Education Commissioner Jeff Riley on Tuesday called for elementary school students to return to in-person learning five days a week in April. Jenn and Stephanie discuss the implications for both students and teachers, who, as a category are not yet eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.

The hosts also discuss the new entry to the Boston mayoral race: state Senator and Boston Medical Center emergency room doctor Jon Santiago.

Finally, guests Tori Bedford of GBH and Lisa Kashinsky of the Boston Herald stop by the virtual bunker to share their coverage of the race to replace former House Speaker Bob DeLeo in the 19th Suffolk District. Allegations of sexual misconduct were made against candidate Valentino Capobianco on Tuesday, as reported by Tori. She and Lisa break down the ramifications of these allegations and the future of the race.

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Full transcript here:

Jennifer Smith: [00:00:04] Welcome back to The Horse Race, your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I am Jennifer Smith and I'm here with Stephanie Murray. Stephanie, how are you this fine week? [00:00:13][9.5]

Stephanie Murray: [00:00:14] Well, I'm feeling like I'm never going to be able to buy a house Jenn because Dunkin Donuts has just added avocado toast to the menu. [00:00:21][6.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:00:22] Yeah, we should pause here for some of our listeners to shake their fists at the sky and yell, you know, millennials and your GD avocados. Well, I'm sorry for your future house. [00:00:32][9.5]

Stephanie Murray: [00:00:33] No, but really, we have lots to discuss. But I just want to say, you know, I think this was kind of the last normal week of our lives in 2020, the week that we're in right now, the end of February, beginning of March. And it's just kind of crazy to think about. Like I was out on the campaign trail covering Super Tuesday. I don't know about you. [00:00:51][18.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:00:52] Yeah, we were actually around this time a few weeks, maybe even just a week before everything actually got shut down was my partner's birthday. And we had that at the Hawthorne and Eastern Standard, which now are, you know, casualties of all of the closures due to covid. So it's it's been a weird week where it's literally a year since a bunch of us hung out in a room when we were still not really sure if the protocol was, can you bump elbows with people? And and now, you know, it's a week where, in fact, the news stories around Eastern Standard and the Hawthorne and Island Creek are they are closed. They haven't been able to to get it back together. So it's a kind of strange bookend on a strange year. [00:01:39][46.7]

Stephanie Murray: [00:01:39] Yeah, absolutely. It feels like in some ways that this year didn't even happen. But on the other hand, this year has happened in the worst way, obviously. And when we come back to normal life, at some point, maybe a lot of things will be closed. But speaking of things that are closed right now, we have some big news on the education front. Massachusetts Education Commissioner Jeff Riley and, you know, some other top officials in the Baker administration are calling for getting elementary school students back to in-person learning five days a week in April. [00:02:12][32.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:02:12] Yeah, and the April thing was it was kind of interesting to me while as we all were, I assume, riveted watching the press conference, announcing, announcing these policies, as we do every time there's a press conference, is is kind of the question of of why April, you know, there's only a few months left of the school year and also why elementary school students. [00:02:33][20.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:02:34] And I think a few things to to touch on here are the governor and other members of the state who were talking about this were discussing kind of the ongoing mental health toll and learning loss that's coming from kind of remote or hybrid education, which we've talked about on the podcast before. And so the state was kind of citing these issues as a reason to push for the return as well as as cases dropping. But it is it is it is kind of an awkward situation. And not everyone is thrilled with the idea of of whether or not the governor can kind of force schools to all offer in-person learning. [00:03:08][34.1]

Stephanie Murray: [00:03:08] It's going to be fascinating to see what the teachers unions do. They've been really vocal about calling for teachers to be vaccinated before they go back into full time teaching in the building. You know, a lot of school districts are doing hybrid and remote. So teachers are teaching in person and a lot of places sometimes, but not all the time. But the Johnson and Johnson vaccine seems to be on the move as of today. So, you know, maybe the governor is banking on those vaccines coming sooner than later. But the April marker is interesting to me. The secretary of education, James Peyser, was on WBZ over the weekend on Keller At Large, and he was talking about how there's been so much learning loss over the last year that the state is preparing to really expand summer school programs for kids that are going to be more full than ever. Those will probably start after the Fourth of July and will rely on federal funding along with state funding. So they're planning for that as well, just like a lot of different kind of moving pieces here. [00:04:10][62.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:04:11] Can we also kind of talk about sort of the conditions that they're discussing for this return there? You know, is the idea of a three foot social distancing as opposed to a six foot social distancing? The reason it's kind of elementary schools at the moment is because, you know, the older students get, the less likely they are to just kind of be moving around with the same pack of kids. You know, you're in different classes. The the more complicated the curriculum gets. So what were some of your takeaways on what the actual pitch is for reopening schools in April? [00:04:45][33.3]

Stephanie Murray: [00:04:45] So this isn't a done deal. Commissioner Riley has to ask for this to be, you know, voted on and move forward. But it would give what he's asking for is the authority to kind of force schools to open in person. And he was stressing that parents would still have the right. To keep their kids at home and do remote learning, but wanted to make the in-person option available to all students and I mean, we're at the very end of February. April is not that far away. Another kind of interesting thing to look out for here is whether schools can handle having all the kids in the building and distance safely. There has been some debate over whether, you know, kids need to be six feet apart and classrooms are of three feet is OK. I think what Peyser and Riley said the other day was that they recommend at least three feet. And if you can do more, do more. About three feet seems to be what they're saying, which I think is a little bit different than the CDC guidelines that say six feet. [00:05:42][56.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:05:42] And it's also an interesting local control issue in Massachusetts because, you know, cities and towns are usually given a decent amount of authority over their local education systems. And even if you're looking at whether or not this is legally permissible, prior court decisions have said that, for instance, the Baker administration had the power to close businesses and impose other restrictions because this was in part because the state needed to prevent the spread of covid. And it's a little bit less clear what this public safety basis would be for ordering schools to reopen, because my understanding and again, Stephanie, I promise you watched this are much closer than I did, teachers and their vaccine status is still kind of a point of some controversy. [00:06:26][43.2]

Stephanie Murray: [00:06:26] Right. And some teachers-- advocates actually-- accused Baker of bringing the school issue up this week to kind of distract from the vaccine rollout. There are, you know, a number of groups that are advocating for a moved up place in line for the vaccine that just aren't getting it yet. Baker stressed that, you know, the state is getting limited access to vaccines from the federal government, things we talked about plenty of times before. But the governor responded to that kind of pointing to statistics that he says show Massachusetts is on the right track. I think the state is, I think, ninth or 10th right now for vaccine distribution, per capita, first dose for the past week and among, you know, states with more than five million people. Massachusetts ranks first for first doses, but we'll hear a lot more of that tomorrow or maybe today, depending on when you're listening to this podcast, because the governor is going to testify before an oversight committee on Beacon Hill about the vaccine rollout. So, you know, something to kind of put a pin in and keep watching. [00:07:27][60.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:07:29] Yeah. And it's it's definitely an interesting moment for oversight, basically on the part of the state legislature, on the state's response here, because it's also the same week as new data is out from the macing polling group on the governor's popularity, because clearly, Steve Spirit is here in the virtual bunker, even though he is physically not here. We aren't even on a physical virtual bunker together. But he definitely is not because the Massachusetts polling group looked at the actual approval ratings and the governor is still riding high. He's got 74 percent approval and only 20 percent disapproval among the state's residents. This isn't really a change from from December 2020. And I know a lot of us were watching to see what the response would be after kind of the holiday surge and how the initial vaccine rollout kind of went off. So what do you think? Is this going to have any kind of impact? Is anyone else raring to go to challenge him this week? [00:08:23][54.7]

Stephanie Murray: [00:08:24] You know, if we we look back at the data from other kind of areas where the Baker administration has been criticized, his his approval just hasn't budged. I will note that this is one of the rare times that the legislature is even holding an oversight hearing that the administration is going to be part of. I think the last high profile one was the RMV situation a few years ago. But, you know, somebody who I suspect is watching those approval ratings pretty closely is the attorney general, Maura Healey, somebody who just ask anyone who might run for governor in 2022. And her name is at the top of the list. She has been popping up touring vaccine sites lately. She's been very critical of the governor on the vaccine rollout and allowed her to say that she has been in the past, which has led to some speculation, especially in the Boston Globe, about whether she's kind of, you know, doing the early steps of a campaign. [00:09:18][54.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:09:19] That reporting made me immediately think of our conversation last week with Sean Cotter of the Herald talking about Lelling leaving as the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts. Because part of the issue is always when prosecutors are kind of stepping out of a very strict prosecutorial role to go wading into politics more generally. It reasonably raises those eyebrows about why are you doing this specifically? And I mean, we did, in fact, ask Maura Healey at our live show many, many moons ago if if she was running and as usual, was kind of, you know, focused on the on the job at hand. So we'll see. [00:09:57][37.4]

Stephanie Murray: [00:09:58] Some people who we know are actually running in a different race. I think we should mention that. State Representative Jon Santiago just got into the race for mayor of Boston and of course, he's been a guest on the horse race a couple of times now, including fairly recently in January. So, of course, check out that conversation. I think it's episode 164. That's-- we have recorded a lot of episodes. [00:10:19][21.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:10:20] I know we've been in the bunker for so long. And I mean, Jon Santiago is joining a cast of three other declared candidates, maybe four. And then the sort of interesting context there as well is that list might grow a little bit with John Barros, who's Boston's chief of economic development, who has submitted his resignation letter to Mayor Walsh. And that is widely assumed to be because he's inching closer to a run for mayor. But, Stephanie, there was some interesting endorsement news this week on the on the Jon Santiago subject. [00:10:54][34.2]

Stephanie Murray: [00:10:54] Yes, there was. And this is, you know, one of those kind of early examples of the race for mayor being, you know, pretty personal. So Byron Rushing, the former state representative, endorsed Michelle Wu the same day that Santiago got into the race. We're talking about that because Jon Santiago upset Byron Rushing and knocked him out of office in twenty eighteen. Pretty interesting is what I'll say about that. [00:11:21][26.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:11:22] And Stephanie, you talked about one of the other candidates running, Annissa Essaibi George, in Playbook today, because she seems to be aligning herself pretty closely with Mayor Walsh during her run. So what does that actually look like in practice? Does it kind of align with some of the other folks' approach? And why might someone take that tack? [00:11:40][18.1]

Stephanie Murray: [00:11:41] Kind of the early contours of the race are shaping up to be the candidates who got into the race when Mayor Walsh was expected to seek a third term and were basically running against him. And then the other side, as the candidates who are jumping in after it was clear he was leaving. So City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George was on Channel 5 and she said explicitly that if Marty Walsh was running for a third term, she would not have gotten into the race and she would have looked forward to working with him in his third term. [00:12:14][33.0]

Stephanie Murray: [00:12:15] And because he's leaving, she's running and she, you know, put some emphasis on how they've worked together on different issues, their shared roots in Dorchester. So pretty closely aligning herself with the mayor, which makes sense because Mayor Walsh has a 69 percent favorability rating, according to the last mass polling group poll back in September. You know, he's a pretty popular mayor. And on the other hand, you have Andrea Campbell and Michelle Wu, both city councilors who got into the race in September and have been more critical of Walsh. So something that we'll see kind of develop maybe maybe it will be different as more candidates jump into the race. But that's something I have my eye on. [00:12:52][36.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:12:52] And on that note, can we briefly touch on some of the other trends we're seeing in this race so far? I know everyone is is super excited for us to get into the nitty gritty of the Boston mayoral race this far ahead of things. But I have been fascinated kind of by this this resurgence of an effort that we saw in 2018 by certain kind of black political leaders, many of them former elected officials, many of them just very active in the political community who are kind of trying to form this push to decide on a black candidate for mayor that they all want to rally behind, citing what they say was their success at doing that in 2018 with the Suffolk County district attorney's race in which Rachael Rollins came out ahead. So that's kind of an interesting dynamic happening right now, because currently Andrea Campbell is the only black announced candidate for the office, but Kim Janey is rumored there may be others. So how are you thinking about kind of the coalitional factions that are already trying to basically carve out some territory in the race? [00:14:02][69.6]

Stephanie Murray: [00:14:03] I think a lot of different people see this race as a particular opportunity in Boston. The city has always been led by a white man back to when Boston started. And kind of the overwhelming feeling among sources that I speak to is that this is the time when a person of color will be elected to lead the city. So this group will continue, is what they're calling it. It's a group of black leaders who are kind of working behind the scenes to coalesce behind one candidate. There is some concern among sources that I've spoken with over the last few weeks that have too many candidates of color get into the race. It could split the vote and create a path for a white male candidate to win. But for that to happen, a white man would have to get into the race. And we haven't seen that yet. [00:14:47][44.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:14:48] Yeah, that's right. Even if, for instance, Barros gets in and, you know, with Jon Santiago as well, all of the major candidates are still, in fact, people of color, which is really, really interesting. One other thing that we've talked about in the past is, is kind of the, "I am from here" lane, which is always, always interesting in local races, because that that approach looks different depending on what the candidate is. Some candidates say, you know, I'm from here and I have seen certain inequities and that's why I want to, you know, fix those things. Some people are saying, I'm from here and I want to kind of continue what's already been done. I understand Boston well. And then you have the flip side of that, which is, is there something specific about any locality that means that the best person to run it at any point is someone who is technically from there, regardless of how long they've lived in the area. So that's always a dynamic in these races. It's been really interesting to me to watch a few candidates try and brand that strategy to their specific candidacy. Who are you who are you thinking of when you say that? So I'm thinking, as you noted with Annissa, Councilor Essaibi George, pointing to kind of the Dorchester roots and then another Dorchester Mattapan candidate, Andrea Campbell, really pointing to kind of her, you know, background here, growing up here with her brother. And I'm sure we'll see that from other folks if they get in the race, because never forget, you know, even Mayor Walsh very much pushed the kind of son of Dorchester vibe during his candidacy. So it's a pretty powerful incentive in Boston, as in a lot of other localities. But then you get into kind of the complicated territory of who does that leave out of a conversation, Michelle Wu is from Chicago, as is current Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. So it'll be kind of interesting to see if people can sort of thread that needle in explaining why, for instance, being from a place might matter, while not suggesting that someone should not be considered for the job just because they didn't happen to be born here. [00:16:51][123.5]

Stephanie Murray: [00:16:52] Yeah, I mean, we've seen and we've talked about so many times the way the electorate in Boston is changing, especially as evidenced in 2018, like you said. So I think that's going to be an interesting thread to watch in this mayoral race, whether, you know, putting a premium on being from Boston is going to endure or if that's kind of an idea that's going to go go to the past a little bit. [00:17:13][21.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:17:15] Definitely. Well, Stephanie, I'm glad we got to take a chance to break that down for a bit, but we have other things to do today that are outside of Boston. And it's a bit of a hot topic right now. What are we talking about for the rest of the episode? [00:17:28][12.8]

Stephanie Murray: [00:17:28] We're not going too far out of Boston. We're going to talk about the special election to fill former House Speaker Bob Duilio seat up in Winthrop in Revere. And to talk about that, we have Lisa Kashinski from the Boston Herald and Tori Bedford from GBH. [00:17:42][13.2]

Jennifer Smith: [00:17:42] Let's get into it. [00:17:43][0.9]

Stephanie Murray: [00:17:50] The special House race to fill Bob DeLeo's seat was upended on Tuesday by allegations of sexual misconduct by a Democratic candidate. Attorney General Maura Healey and former Congressman Joe Kennedy pulled their endorsements from Valentino Capobianco, a member of the Winthrop School Committee, after an explosive report from news to talk about the allegations and the race. More broadly, we're joined by Tori Bedford and Lisa Kashinsky of the Boston Herald. Thank you both for being here. [00:18:18][28.6]

Tori Bedford: [00:18:19] Thank you for having me. [00:18:20][0.7]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:18:20] Thank you. [00:18:20][0.3]

Stephanie Murray: [00:18:21] So, Tori, let's start with you, because you broke the story about the endorsements being rescinded. Can you kind of just walk us through what's going on with the Capobianco campaign? [00:18:31][9.7]

Tori Bedford: [00:18:33] So this is the information that I received was that there were several victims of sexual harassment and assault who had allegations involving Tina Capobianco, and they had reached out to Attorney General Maura Healey's office. And so I had independently obtained these emails and then the office had confirmed that multiple women had reached out. And the allegations included, as I wrote about, they mentioned, predatory behavior, some repeated unwanted messaging, unwanted sexual advances, and in one, at least in one case, attempting to have sex with a non consenting, inebriated woman. So once these were the Kennedy and the Kennedy camp, the Kennedy folks and the the Healey folks both issued statements once they had found out about the allegations and they said that they had no knowledge of the allegations during the time of their endorsements. But once they were briefed on them and, you know, found that they were credible, they both withdrew their endorsements. [00:19:46][73.2]

Jennifer Smith: [00:19:48] And Capobianco denies the allegations. I wonder if either of you can kind of talk to one of the things that came up in the aftermath of the story, which was the idea that people should kind of be independently vetting candidates before they ever make an endorsement to to not deal with the sort of embarrassment. Torie, you had the emails kind of on your own and then verified them. But were these out there? Were was anyone aware of these allegations to such an extent that it was weird that Maura Healey or Kennedy would endorse him to begin with? [00:20:21][32.9]

Tori Bedford: [00:20:21] So both the campaigns said that they were not aware of these allegations. And I know that there were around the time that he announced his campaign, they had there were several of his old tweets from like 2010, 2013 that had emerged and where he said some what people were saying was really questionable stuff. And we were actually going to we were talking about whether or not that was relevant to the story, because I think that the accusations and the allegations that we had and verified were sort of of a different category. Obviously, you know, it's all puzzle pieces in a in a big picture. But I think that we specifically looked at just these allegations from these verified sources that we had. I know that there was a lot of social media buzz, though. And so if the campaigns were aware of those tweets, I'm not sure. But I know that they had said that they weren't aware of the specific allegations that I brought to them and that the emails contained in. [00:21:25][63.7]

Stephanie Murray: [00:21:25] Lisa, you've been following kind of the the reaction to this story. We know that there's been kind of an exodus of other endorsements. And you've been looking at the candidates fundraising reports and kind of who's supporting them. So could you tell us kind of who who else has rescinded endorsements and who Capobianco supporters have been? [00:21:45][19.3]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:21:46] Yeah, it was interesting because the fallout was pretty swift. You know, more people pulled their endorsements as soon as Tori's story broke. You know, you had Capobianco's former boss, state Senator Paul Feeney. You had Suffolk Sherriff Steve Thompkins, Planned Parenthood and some groups like that who hadn't specifically endorsed a candidate in the race, but were promoting kind of three of the Democrats against Jeff, I guess, over Jeffrey Turco. We're kind of saying now there's only two candidates that we can support in this race, you know, after the story broke. But it was interesting, too, because, you know, I went on the fundraising that night on on OCPF and Valentino Capobianco had raised about five thousand dollars last time I had checked on the day that the story broke. And yeah, there were definitely there were contributions coming in from Martha Coakley, from a few other kind of big names that were still donating. I don't know if it was we don't have the time stamps on those, but we do know that they came in that day. [00:22:48][62.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:22:49] And of course, you know, as journalists, we often end up in the situation where we're trying to verify things, in part based on anonymous sourcing, where some of the people that we're talking to are in kind of protected or vulnerable category of people. And so that in combination with sort of this this haunting figure of an opposition dump, timing right at the end of an election can often lead to an amount of skepticism from readers who haven't maybe been paying attention to the race that far. So can you kind of walk us through what the process was for sort of verifying the claims and then how you grapple with that kind of context in the background? [00:23:28][38.8]

Tori Bedford: [00:23:30] Yes. So obviously, when someone comes to me with an allegation like this, I take it very seriously and I look at it very critically. And so we worked very, very, very hard to make sure that all of this was credible and then it was verified. And a spokesperson for Hili did confirm to us that she had received multiple emails of this nature. And we had other allegations that, you know, we'd reach out to say, when was this? Where was this? You know, who was there, who might remember it? Who did you talk to about it at the time? And then contact those people and say, do you remember hearing about this? What did this person say to you about this? And then putting it through the filters of multiple editors and our legal team. And so the idea that this is just a coordinated oppo dump before an election, it seems like they're saying that, you know, that perhaps either I was tricked into that or that, you know, that that somehow I'm a part of it. But that's just not at all how the process works, because we all we have in journalism is our reputation and our integrity and our credibility. [00:24:48][78.1]

Tori Bedford: [00:24:48] And so when we take on stories like this, obviously the people who come forward take on the biggest risk. And it's extremely scary and brave. And, you know, I think it takes a lot out of someone, but it's also a risk as a journalist to take those claims seriously. And I think that that's an important thing to do, is to obviously not to be to, you know, to be cliched, but to trust but verify. We also reached out to Capobianco's campaign. We tried to give them as much time as possible while working with the campaigns who were sort of making their own revelations and kind of trying to move everything forward. And so every time, you know, someone would say, OK, well, someone else came forward and now, you know, you have to verify that claim and work on that. And once that's verified and seems ironclad and credible, then you go to the campaign and you say this is another allegation that is being put out against you, like we just found out about it. We're trying to give you as much time as possible to respond. And so we did that for every single thing that came up because things were just kind of at a certain point there was more momentum and things just started rolling in. [00:26:01][72.3]

Stephanie Murray: [00:26:02] So what does this do to the race moving forward? I think we should mention this is a special election. So it's happening outside kind of the normal schedule and on a condensed timeline. Ballots have already gone out for the March 2nd primary through the state's expanded vote by mail program. Tori, you mentioned that forum last night. The issue came up at the beginning, but then the other candidates didn't raise it throughout the rest of the hour. So, Lisa, could you talk about who else is running and and how this has scrambled the race, if at all? [00:26:34][32.3]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:26:35] Yeah, I would say it's definitely throwing a wrench in it very close to the end. I guess we'll see what happens, because right now, you know, as I was kind of saying, you know, Capobianco is still second in fundraising in this field. And the candidate who has the most amount of money raised is Jeffrey Turco, who's a Democrat. But he's the one who had kind of up until this point and taking a lot of heat in this race for views that even some of his fellow candidates have said are maybe a little less purely democratic sanctuary cities. He's not fully a supporter of that because he's talked about how it can hamstring law enforcement. And that has been a major talking point in this campaign, actually, because you have another candidate, Juan Jaramillo, you know, who is an immigrant and who has been outspoken against these viewpoints that Jeffrey Turco has. So up until this point, it was actually kind of Turco that had been the you know, that had been the target in this race. So then you also have Alicia DelVento, who also has experience on Beacon Hill. You know, she is the woman in this race at this point. So, yeah, that's kind of the field, right? You also have a Republican and an independent candidate that will come into play a little bit later down the road. [00:27:54][79.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:27:55] So I mean, exactly to that point, what were Capobianco's slash are Capobianco's voters believed to be? What is the base here that if he were to drop out or if he were to lose a significant portion of his support, who would that go to based on the other people in the race right now, kind of, in your view, covering it? [00:28:17][21.9]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:28:19] Well, there is some overlap. I know that some of his supporters were not quite happy that Bernie Sanders had endorsed Juan Jaramillo. A lot of 2020 Bernie activists were behind or are behind, I should say, Juan. But some of his 2016 supporters, people who had been a little more active in that first bid as well, they were actually behind, including state Sen. Paul Feeney, who, you know, had done a lot with Sanders in '16, was one of his co-chairs again this time around, and a former Bernie staffer also works on Tino's campaign. So maybe he will get some of that, maybe a little more progressive vote. Maybe some of those progressive voters will go a little bit more to some of the other candidates now that they've seen this. But it is kind of hard to know in these hyper local races. They don't always follow along these very clean-cut moderate / progressive lines. [00:29:18][59.4]

Stephanie Murray: [00:29:20] I'd be interested to hear what you both think this means for the state Democratic Party moving forward. Capobianco is an elected member of the Democratic State Committee. Some pretty high-profile Democrats had endorsed him and rescinded those endorsements. And the party was already being criticized for a similar situation with Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse, similar in the way that allegations surfaced really close to an election. I mean, how does the state party play into this? Any thoughts there? [00:29:54][34.8]

Tori Bedford: [00:29:56] I do think that-- so, many people who spoke to me said that this is and has been kind of a big open secret and Winthrop is a very small town and it's very insular. And a lot of people had been talking. And so obviously, as a journalist, you hear about rumors and that is meaningless, right? That's hearsay. It doesn't hold any weight. And so that's when your verification process begins. But there had been, you know, quite a few whisperings and I had joined like a couple of Facebook groups. And, you know, there's just like a dialog that goes on and you have to start to wonder if there's any truth to that. I do think there's a possibility that the campaigns, you know, may not have spent that much time digging into Twitter replies or Facebook comments or, you know, being a part of these groups or knowing people on a local level. I don't that's not to say that they you know, that's not that's not something they should have done. But I'm not sure that they did that. And there's a possibility that this is a secret that they did not know about. [00:31:07][71.7]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:31:08] Yeah, I think with some of these higher-level endorsements coming in, I mean, Bernie Sanders in his tweet endorsing Juan, I think misspelled, not misspelled, but kind of misstated what the district was that he was running for. So I'm not really sure the level, especially for these types of hyper local races that goes into the process of these endorsements. You know, I know that there's a lot of establishment, you know, politics going on and stuff and endorsements can be kind of influence maybe by who you know, which, you know, can apply in all scenarios with the endorsements that were flying in this race. [00:31:46][37.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:31:48] Yeah, and I think lastly, before we let you go, you know, the election is roaring around the corner right now. There is another forum hosted by State House News Service tomorrow on Thursday. But but the thing that I'm really curious for, for both of you is, Tori, you mentioned kind of the changing comments coming from the Capobianco campaign in in, you know, multiple iterations. And Lisa, obviously you're watching sort of this entire race unfold. So as we get ever closer to the end, are you watching to see if he drops out or are you watching to see if a story changes or are you just watching to see if, you know, he can stop the bleeding? [00:32:27][39.8]

Tori Bedford: [00:32:29] I think that the biggest issue that was presented to me by the people who had who were bringing these allegations forward was that they were upset that Capobianco was getting such big name endorsements from people who they assumed didn't know about these allegations. I don't know if he'll drop out. I'm not sure, you know, where he stands on that. I think he I mean, I I'm pretty sure from his statement that I think at the very end of it, he says, "I'd like to think that despite any personal embarrassment this story brings to me, the people of this district who know me will decide that I can still do more for their families and our community over the next two years than can any of the other candidates running. If that is the case, I'd be honored and humbled to become their voice and their vote on Beacon Hill." And so I don't think that I mean, that's how he ended his statement. I-- based on that, I don't think he intends to drop out. I know there is mounting pressure from this kind of continued withdrawing of of endorsements, but I really have no idea what's going to happen. The election is very soon. [00:33:41][72.3]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:33:42] At this point with the election coming up around the corner, you know, it's he's a pretty well-known figure in the community who obviously has some base of support that is still with him giving given the money he was able to bring in on Tuesday. You know, with the story is so I think that he likely at this point stays in. [00:34:00][17.8]

Stephanie Murray: [00:34:02] So this is moving quickly. By this time next week, we'll know the results of the primary election. But until then, Tori Bedford of GBH and Lisa Kashinsky of the Boston Herald, thanks so much for joining us. [00:34:13][11.8]

Tori Bedford: [00:34:14] Thank you, guys. That was great. [00:34:16][1.1]

Lisa Kashinsky: [00:34:16] Thanks for having me. [00:34:16][0.5]

Stephanie Murray: [00:34:19] And so that brings us to the end of our show, and before we leave, we want to ask you, what were you doing on this last final week of normal life before covid-19 changed everything? If you want to share. Feel free to, you know, tweet at us. Send us a message, send us an email record, a voice memo and text it to me. We will read our favorites or play them next week. [00:34:41][22.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:34:42] Gosh, that's a good and kind of depressing question. Unless someone had a really good last week right before quarantine, in which case it might make us all feel a little tiny bit better. But that is all the time we have for this particular week. I am Jennifer Smith and I am here with Stephanie Murray. Our producer, as always, is Libby Gormley. Make sure to leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for the Politico Massachusets Playbook. If you're not already subscribed, if you need some polls done called The MassINC Polling Group. We'll see you next week. [00:34:42][0.0]

[2019.9]