Episode 226: Walk the Orange Line

8/25/22--- This week on The Horse Race Jenn and Steve are thrilled that it's cooled down. We then dive into Orange Line updates with Rowan Walrath of the Boston Business Journal. It's been nearly a week since the shutdown, but the full impact has not been quite felt as students have yet to return to school.

Later, we talk to Bera Dunau of the Daily Hampshire Gazette about the race to fill Lieutenant Governor hopeful Eric Lesser's seat. There's also a three-way run for sheriff in Hampden County.

Our BFF Katie Lannan of GBH News drops by the pod to run us through a recent story she wrote surrounding the history and current status of the Cambodian political community in Lowell.

Full Transcript Below:

Jennifer Smith: [00:00:26] This week on The Horse Race. We're running through the first week of the MBTAorange line closure and then we'll go through some primary primers as September six quickly approaches. It's Thursday, August 25th. [00:00:37][11.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:00:50] Welcome back to The Horse Race, the weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Steve Koczela here this week with Jennifer Smith. Our tireless co-host, Lisa Kashinsky, is off today. A quick check of the calendar. We are just two weeks away from the primary today, Jenn. I don't know how this snuck up on us. [00:01:06][15.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:01:06] I cannot comprehend what time has been doing for the last two years. And Steve, I don't have children to monitor because schools are about to restart, too. How are you even juggling that? [00:01:18][11.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:01:19] That's always a question that I'm really never sure even of what the answer is, even if it is even as it's happening. But yes, schools are starting. For some, they've started already. Some have gone back. And the rest pretty much over the next two or so weeks will be will be back in session. I do actually love this time of year in New England, you know, at the top. Time has passed. It's starting to cool off like all that, you know, great produce starts to show up. [00:01:42][23.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:01:43] So it's the Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce paying for this segment. [00:01:46][3.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:01:48] Send your check to horse race, global media empire headquarters in care of the horse race. I don't know, something like that. [00:01:53][5.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:01:54] I mean, what I am looking out for is the great move in for all of the colleges and universities in Massachusetts. I don't really want to take bets or jinx it about how many people might get star oad in a moment where two entire lines of the meta are limited in functionality or just shut down entirely but you know, drive safe out there, folks. And please do not try and drive a truck that is taller than the bridge, under the bridge. [00:02:24][30.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:02:25] Yes, definitely don't get started. It is the big question, though. I think the first week of the orange line shutdown, as you you're going to talk about a little bit, is behind us. But of course, that didn't include children. It didn't include a lot of the college students who are either kind of just showing up now or will be showing up in the next week. So a lot of chaos definitely left to come in terms of the shutdown. And please, we're begging you, the official horse race position is do not gets to on moving day. Thank you very much. This has been a public service announcement of the horse race. [00:02:57][31.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:02:58] This is very important. I know it's a controversial position. We do. However, as a programing note, want to point out that we are as mentioning heading toward the primary. We have one more episode before that happens. The day after the primary, we'll be checking in on how everything went down, but then we'll be off for two weeks to let you ponder the results. Cry to yourselves a little bit if your preferred candidate didn't win or take it. And we'll be returning with all of your general election coverage right through November. So mark your calendars. I assume this is how you plan your lives. [00:03:29][31.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:03:30] I sure would hope so. But that brings us to the question for which we've never once provided a satisfactory answer, which is, Jenn, why are we here today? [00:03:36][6.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:03:37] Well, it might not shock anyone. We are here to talk more about the trains. We're going to be taking a quick look at the beleaguered orange line and how the shutdown is progressing so far. And then we're going to continue our countdown to primary day by dropping in on races in Worcester and Lowell. So shall we? [00:03:53][16.2]

Steve Koczela: [00:03:54] Let's ride. [00:03:55][0.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:04:02] The MBTA's orange line closure has been in effect for nearly a week now in bits and pieces, and writers have had to get creative with their morning commutes. Here to walk us through how the first week of the closure has affected riders. We're joined by Rowan Walrath of the Boston Business Journal. Welcome, Rowan. [00:04:18][16.0]

Rowan Walwrath: [00:04:19] Hi. Thank you so much for having me. [00:04:20][1.2]

Jennifer Smith: [00:04:21] Of course, now I think the first and most meaningful question we have to get to is how is it going so far? And is 7000 journalists on the train enough to keep the system operating? [00:04:31][10.3]

Rowan Walwrath: [00:04:32] What a fantastic question. It does seem like having so many eyes on this is a blessing and a curse, but one that perhaps leans a little bit more toward blessing. I know my colleagues at the Boston Business Journal and I have been sort of tackling this from all angles and the lead up to the shutdown. And now, of course, in this first week, we're not only covering the orange line shutdown, we're also personally affected. I had a coworker this morning say that his commute took half an hour longer than usual. He was kind of like, yeah, it's not that bad. We were like, Yeah, but half an hour is not nothing, especially if it's on both ends. Like, that's a whole extra hour out of your day. And I mean, I live in Jamaica, plain and practically steps from Jackson Square Station on the orange line. The shuttle route is about a block from my house, and I often walk on the southwest corridor. So, yes, all of these infrastructure changes affect me personally as well. One thing that I saw leading up to the closure was, you know, not only are we kind of freaking out and figuring out how we're going to conduct our lives, so are my neighbors. JP has a very active neighborhood Facebook group, which I'm sure is no surprise to anyone who is familiar with the workings of Jamaica Plain. And what I saw over the last couple of weeks is people posting, trying to find carpools, asking each other what their plans are, whether they're going to take advantage of the shuttle busses and the commuter rail. Someone was asking if the shuttle busses are just, you know, charter busses or if they had included some of the existing MBK busses as well. Because an issue with the charter busses is they don't have bike racks. So if you're, say, biking the forest hills and then you're planning on putting your bike on the front of the bus, you can't do that anymore, not with these shuttles. [00:06:26][113.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:06:27] And actually, to that point, one of the big questions leading up to the shutdown was kind of the communication channels that the state was putting in place, how people were going to find out if, for instance, that commuter rail would be basically letting you wave your Charlie card at them vaguely so that you could basically use it as a substitute over the month. There's more blue bikes out on the street right now. So what have you heard either about the kind of functionality of these alternatives, but also whether or not people know what those alternatives are? [00:06:58][31.1]

Rowan Walwrath: [00:06:59] I do think that people know what the alternatives are, whether through word of mouth or because of the communication from the state is something that we'll never truly know. But folks are figuring out the commuter rail schedule. Is it something that I can take advantage of as something that will mesh with my work schedule with these extra stops at Forest Hills and Ruggles and other stations? Some people are taking advantage of the Free Blue Bikes Pass, which has had the added effect of there are fewer blue bikes available at stations, which was predictable, and I don't really know what you do about that, to be honest with you. I had the opportunity to speak to the director of organizing and operations at the Boston Cyclists Union, Eliza Parrott, who is, you know, she's biking all the time, of course, but she is expecting there to be an uptick in cyclists on blue bikes and perhaps in their own personal vehicles as well. She told me last week that she saw a similar phenomenon at the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic, when commuters no longer felt safe riding, the team switched to their bicycles, along with other forms of transportation, easier to social distance on a bicycle than it is on the tee. And so she's expecting to see a comparable uptick in bike ridership this time around. Her organization has done some things to try to make First-Time Cyclist commuters more comfortable. They had a couple of practice bike rides and they're having volunteers posted along the route basically from Forest Hills on the South Side and then from Oak Grove on the north side into downtown Boston. [00:08:41][101.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:08:43] And we have to also talk about the implications for t adjacent industries here. You know, you're the life science reporter at the BBJ normally, even though you are, of course deeply impacted by the orange line doing some nonsense. And then you and your colleagues at Boston and the BBJ have been covering reactions from businesses who are really going to feel the impact, as well as covering the implications for home ownership people who live nearby. So what are you seeing in terms of adjustment over this month from businesses who depend on the tea? But then also, are there longer term concerns from people if this is the sort of thing that might just happen with the MBTA now? [00:09:26][43.0]

Rowan Walwrath: [00:09:27] Well, I think people really do have longer term concerns because the shutdown is sort of the acute phase of this illness that has been going on for months now and will be expected to go on for months in the future. I mean, we were operating on a weekend schedule on weekdays well prior to the shutdown, because we do not have enough safety personnel at the MBTA to have a sufficient number of trains run on time. People already feeling the pains of that and delays that are related to that specific staffing issue we already know are not going to be resolved until next year, shutdown or not. [00:10:10][42.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:10:11] And getting to some of these alternatives that are in the system, not just blue bikes, but then also thinking about the regularity of shuttles. I did, of course, allude somewhat jokingly, but not entirely to the very heavy reporter presence at all of the shuttle stops. Governor Baker was tweeting out about the commuter rail, which he apparently rode in the other day. So as a reporter, what are you watching to see if kind of the non bike alternatives are running smoothly. Because again, we're only one weekend at this point. [00:10:45][34.0]

Rowan Walwrath: [00:10:46] It's true. I am continuing to watch the Jamaica Plain Facebook Group, to be honest with you. People are kind of posting what their personal commutes were like and saying like, yeah, shuttle busses were in fact on time. They were running every 5 minutes. And it's great so far that here is the commuter rail schedule that I took advantage of, and here's what you might do. So it really is about neighbors helping neighbors, which I always really love to see just as a human. I think that there will be a greater test in the coming weeks. One because of moving day. I'm just going to pretend that I am not picking up a U-Haul from a site that is on the orange line shuttle route and that I do not have to make a left turn to get to my apartment from there, where traffic cops are changing traffic patterns daily on the fly to accommodate for the shuttles. But my personal graphing aside, it's not just moving day. We're also about to have so many more people in Boston, and this happens every single fall. You're going to have, what, tens of thousands of students at Northeastern University and other colleges along the Orange Line and the Green Line, which is partially closed, which I don't think should be forgotten. Then all of this mass. And I mean, honestly, those students are ready. They don't know how to get around. So we'll see if they're able to adapt quickly or not. [00:12:11][84.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:12:12] Rowan and I get to say this as Northeastern undergrad alums, we had no idea how to operate the green and orange lines while we were there. It was a learning process. I mean, finally, the thing that I kind of have to ask is looking at the coverage so far of how this has gone, there is a bit more attention paid to maybe non catastrophic, but still kind of not optically great construction related derailments on the orange line as as work proceeds. Are you concerned if there are more shutdowns to come or what happens if another line goes down as occasionally it does? Does the system seem to you equipped to handle a maybe unexpected delay aside from shutting down the orange line? And again, the green line, as you noted, in between government center and union. [00:13:04][52.6]

Rowan Walwrath: [00:13:06] I don't know how many more shutdowns we as a region could take, to be honest with you. I mean, you've just mentioned a couple of subway lines. The blue line shuttle, I believe, is still running on occasion. A number of busses have been reported for construction through Somerville and other areas, especially near Union Square, which is constantly under extreme development. The airport tunnel is closed. I really. I don't know what to say about this. You know what I mean? It's it's difficult. There's only so much to be done. And I really think it's worth mentioning that the shutdown of the orange line. Impacts black and brown Boston residents more than it does a lot of the people who have been receiving media coverage. My colleague Hannah Green at Boston Out had a really great story recently. She spoke to leaders from organizations including E for All and the Roxbury Innovation Center, which is run by Innovation Studio. Both of these are on the orange line. They create community for small business owners and entrepreneurs in Roxbury, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain. And entrepreneurs, of course, like other communities, have to tackle these new logistical challenges. But they also need to travel all around the city for meetings and speaking engagements, working on their pitch, not going to some competition. And now it's just going to be that much more difficult for them when they already had barriers to access. [00:14:38][92.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:14:40] Well, I think that's about where we need to leave it. Rohan Walwrath of the Boston Business Journal, thank you so much for joining us. I assume not midday commute to talk us through the region's foibles. [00:14:52][12.1]

Rowan Walwrath: [00:14:53] Absolutely. Thanks again for having me. [00:14:55][1.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:15:03] Last week on The Horse Race, we walked through the domino effect of elected officials running for new seats across the state. This week we're looking at that in western Massachusetts. Eric Lesser is leaving his state Senate seat. And joining us today to walk us through the implications from that choice is Bera Dunau of the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Welcome to The Horse Race Bera. [00:15:22][18.8]

Bera Dunau: [00:15:22] Glad to be here. Glad to be talking. [00:15:25][2.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:15:26] So walk us through this at a high level. [00:15:27][1.6]

Bera Dunau: [00:15:28] So Eric Lesser is currently represents one of the districts that covers Hampton County and it stretches into parts of Hampshire County as well, which is why we cover it. It has currently both Belchertown and Granby in it. Redistricting has put South Hadley into it. There's other changes to the border, but broadly it is a suburban seat that has Longmeadow in it, and Lesser is from Long Meadow. And, you know, it's been he's been pretty comfortably ensconced in Said City. He is running for lieutenant governor right now. And so that opened up a seat that, you know, is pretty safely democratic, as we know, had the Senate seats in Massachusetts are pretty safely Democratic. This is also one where, again, you know, the the Republicans, at least in this day and age, I don't think would have a very good chance of of taking it. So, you know, the primary is going to be the election for this one. [00:16:23][54.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:16:24] And speaking of that primary, we're just a couple of weeks away from it. Now we've got two Democratic candidates, just one Republican running. Tell us about the Democratic candidates, both who they are and kind of how their positions and issues are breaking down as the primary approaches. [00:16:37][13.1]

Bera Dunau: [00:16:38] So this is actually kind of interesting to me when I look at this primary, because typically when you're looking at a primary race, especially with within the Democratic Party, a party recently, it's going to be, you know, progressive versus moderate establishment versus more insurgent. There may be a socialist presence in there that can be taking up different lanes. But this particular situation, Oliviera, he's currently a state rep. He has a lot of labor support and he also has some support from local elected officials, although as well we'll get into that. It's not as much as you would think because his opponents actually picked up a decent, decent chunk of that Senate. 11. Epstein is the other person who's running. She's a little younger, although again, she's in her twenties and he is in all is 35. So again, both of them are babies in terms of like political world. But you know, on the flip side of that, they both can potentially have a very long future ahead of them in the Senate. The interesting thing about it is, is that so Obama has a lot of labor support in terms of his endorsements. He's got the AFL-CIO and similarly, he also has Planned Parenthood. But, you know, Cynthia has actually picked up a decent number of local elected supports as well. Nicole LaChapelle, who's the mare of Easttown photo shoot, it should be noted, is stamp. It's not in the district. Josh Garcia, who's mayor of Holyoke, just came out in this district. But, you know, again, these are still heavies who have fundraising prowess and and connections through here in terms of their positions. They're pretty similar both though they're very much back east West Rail and both kind of have pretty much a mainstream liberal democratic kind of kind of tenor to it. Neither of them are really either leaning into like the Eric Adams kind of conservative, social moderate backlash. And neither of them are really acting, you know, like in terms of like the ultra progressive level and such to which, you know, if you're wondering, okay, how common is that in western Massachusetts when in 2018, when there's basically a big reshuffling of all the seats. So the Hampshire county based state rep seats and Senate seats, everyone was basically jostling to like endorse single payer health care and other like real liberal Bernie Sanders style thing. So, you know, when you're talking about it, where around here is that, you know, someone who can and does run with that kind of high liberal level, but neither of them are really doing this. So it's interesting in many ways kind of a contest of personalities rather than party, faction or policies. [00:19:15][156.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:19:16] So how are you gauging the frontrunner in the race here? Who has the advantage going forward? [00:19:20][4.1]

Bera Dunau: [00:19:21] My group is going to usually lean on, especially in a Democratic primary. But the person who has the most labor endorsements and also endorsements of organizations like Planned Parenthood, I mean, and someone who is institutional. So Oliveira would be the person who I would lean towards to being able to pull this race out. But that being said, you know, Levitt, I've seen has definitely a big social media presence. She has a lot of institutional support within the Democratic Party. She is campaigning all the time. So I think that, you know, this is a race where although if you had me put a bet on it, I'd say Oliveira. But she is definitely running the kind of race you run if you want to come from behind and win. [00:20:06][44.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:20:06] And then, of course, Oliveira is a state rep right now and and running for states that advocates his state rep seat. So what's likely to happen there? I know that race was very close last time. Are we expecting that to stay in Democratic hands or could this be a flip for Republicans? [00:20:20][13.4]

Bera Dunau: [00:20:21] This could definitely be a flip for Republicans. You know, Hampton County is one of the places where the Republicans are able to win races in in Massachusetts. So, you know, it was one of those actually terrible things, the way it's drawn. It's achievable, but it's a little less so than when Oliveira once. So when Oliveira won, there were is less of these liberal, less rural communities that were added to it. And I think that adding places like Pelham may have made it a lot harder stretch for the Republicans. That being said, this is going to be a competitive race. So Oliveira is a former opponent, Jeff Harrington, which Ludlow is running on the Republican side. It's going to definitely be a possibility that the Republicans will take this. But as we've been seeing in the special elections like last night in New York, 19, you know, this is not looking like a red wave per se. I do not think that what we're going to be seeing is like in 2010, where you had a lot of Republicans elected to. Massachusetts. I think that Harrington could definitely win on the basis of just, you know, of his actual record and running a good campaign. But I don't think the national and state headwinds are going to propel him to to that seat on its own. But it's sweet. It's going to be one to watch and it's going to be a competitive general election in Worcester, Mass. Which is not generally the case for most of these seats. [00:21:48][87.1]

Jennifer Smith: [00:21:49] Mm hmm. And then pivoting to the last race that we're going to talk about in this segment is the sheriff's race in Hampshire County. It's a three where how is that one shaping up and what are the issues at stake? [00:22:00][11.0]

Bera Dunau: [00:22:01] What you're looking at right now is just that we have our incumbent sheriff, Patrick Cahill, and he is being challenged by two people who used to work for him, Yvette Gilson, who used to work for him in education at the Hampshire County Jail. She now heads education programing for the state of Massachusetts and correctional facilities. And then you're looking at Caitlin Zepeda, who is a correctional nurse who currently works in the Berkshire County jail. But also you so well used to work under Kaitlyn in the Hampshire County jail. This is a this is a really intense race. And if you look at the current Daily Hampshire Gazette newspaper, there is a report of one of Jillian's employees driving by another employee's house and taking pictures of his to pay to sign. There is a whole and it's just also like it's pretty it's pretty intense. And also, it's pretty clear that neither Sir Peter Gittleson are stepping out of the way of the other. Both of them feel that they are qualified to to take this race. Caroline has been talking about his record at the jail and getting money to it and doing programing. And on the flip side, you know, Gittleson is saying that things have not been sufficient with education, programing and support has really been putting like a kind of a prisoner health focus on her stuff. So both of them are coming at their old boss from their own perspectives as well, and also coming with some of their own grievances, too. So this is going to be a competitive race since it's three ways. I think Ayling probably pulls it out, but on the flip side, I can see either Gittleson or Cepeda winning it. That's the one everyone's watching right now. He kind wasn't. [00:23:43][101.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:23:44] Perfect. Well, Bera Dunau. Thank you so much for joining us today on the horse race for a breezed through of some very busy races. [00:23:50][5.7]

Bera Dunau: [00:23:50] Yes thank you much appreciate it. [00:23:52][1.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:23:55] Continuing our primary tour, we turn now to Lowell with chief of the Pod GBH news reporter Katie Lannan. In a story this week, Katie dove into the history and growing pains of the Cambodian political community in Lowell, and she's here with us to break that down. Thanks for being here, Katie. [00:24:11][15.1]

Katie Lannan: [00:24:11] Thanks for having me. Always happy to talk about Lowell as a former Sun reporter. [00:24:15][3.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:24:16] That's great. This is your local territory, which leads us right into what's the backdrop of this actual state rep race. This isn't a race to fill an empty seat, but it's a challenge to a sitting representative. [00:24:26][9.8]

Katie Lannan: [00:24:27] Yes, it's a three way primary contest. We don't see a lot of contested primaries featuring an incumbent here in Massachusetts, which is something horse race listeners have heard about many a time. I think that most. Current lawmakers end up unopposed and kind of cruised to reelection. And low rep Rady Mom, who was the first Cambodian American state lawmaker not just in Massachusetts, but the country, has regularly faced challenges in his district. He was unopposed in 2020, but otherwise has seen challengers in pretty much every cycle. [00:25:06][38.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:25:07] And what is the nature of these primary challenges? The two who are running against him are also Cambodian men of Lowell. So what's been going on there? [00:25:16][9.6]

Katie Lannan: [00:25:17] Yeah, they're both Cambodian. That includes school committee member Dominic Lay and Tara Hoang, who's a recent UMass Lowell graduate. And this is a seat that I talked to, UMass Lowell, political scientist John Covariance, who called it really one of the footholds of power for the Cambodian community in Massachusetts law, as every former Sun reporter can and probably will tell you if given the opportunity, has the second largest Cambodian community in the country outside of Long Beach, California. And I believe it's actually per capita it's higher than Long Beach because the population breakdown is a little different. And this is really the neighborhood where many of the Cambodian businesses, organizations and refugees and immigrants from Cambodia have settled. So it's a symbolically important seat, and it is a time where we've seen more and more diversity within levels, local offices, city and state level. There are now two of the three members of the law delegation are Cambodian American law, also inaugurated the city and the country's first Cambodian American mayor. And after a lawsuit brought by some voters of color and advocacy groups, the city had to change the way it elects its school committee and city council, which resulted in more people of color holding those offices. So it's a it's a time of change. And given that the Cambodian population in law, many arrived during the 1980s as refugees, it's really staking out a claim in city politics and starting to look not just at representation, but at articulating preferences, at building out what people are looking for, just like you have seen immigrant communities do throughout American history. Someone I spoke to compared it to the way the Irish population, which we know about here in Boston for sure, you know, you'd go from having one Irish candidate to three on the ballot, each representing maybe a different sliver of the community, maybe a different stylistic preference. So it's that same kind of thing, and it's something we see play out all over the country. [00:27:40][142.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:27:41] And to those stylistic differences here, what are the pitches? Why does mom think he should keep his seat? And why do Lei and Hong think they should have it? [00:27:49][7.4]

Katie Lannan: [00:27:50] Yeah. Representative Mom is really saying that he's the. The guy who knows what he's doing here, that he has a record of delivering for the district, whether that's funding, whether it's helping constituents, whether it's the connections with other state and federal officials that give the district a voice. The two challengers say they want to improve the communication and they don't quite buy his pitch. So they want to be more present in the district. Tara Long, who is the youngest candidate in the race, he's 22, is backed by some progressive groups. He has an idea that he wants to. Change the top down nature of House leadership, or at least push back on it if he were elected. He wants to increase transparency at the statehouse, something we hear from a lot of legislative candidates running from the left of incumbents. Dominic Lay, who's on the school committee, says he wants to be an independent voice, that he would not be beholden to any group or ideology, but do what's best for the community. And that he has experience doing that on the school committee as well. So it's a interesting slate of candidates. You know, they have some alignment on issues like wanting more economic development in the district, thinking more needs to be done to help people out who are still reeling from the toll of the pandemic. The district has a lower median income than the statewide average, and it also has a higher percentage of people who speak a language other than English at home. So voter outreach is interesting. There's lots of multilingual signs, and it's not just the Cambodian language, but a lot of Spanish speakers in the district. So it's it's pretty interesting to see how you reach out to voters in this situation. [00:29:46][116.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:29:48] So how are you gauging the relative success so far of all of these efforts? Is there a particular leader in the money game? Is someone racking up more endorsements than others? Because one of the things, of course, that was interesting to me reading through your article is Rep mom said this isn't really an internal division question inside the Cambodian community. It's more of a natural evolution of, you know, the broadening routes to political power. I mean, that more and more people, as in plenty of other races, feel free to kind of jump in. So it's a competitive race. How are you getting your sea legs on on who's got the advantage? [00:30:25][36.5]

Katie Lannan: [00:30:26] Well, I think one thing that's definitely worth noting here is that Representative Mom does have the connections he's talking about. A lot of the people you see as locals, power players are donating to his campaign or participating in his fundraisers. So that's definitely not worth discounting. And he has, of course, been challenged before and been reelected. So it'll be interesting to see if that's the case again this year. [00:30:53][27.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:30:54] And then primary day is nearly upon us. Do you have another recommended race that we watch? [00:31:00][5.5]

Katie Lannan: [00:31:01] I'm going to stick with law. This is an all day for me. There is an open seat in law as well on the House side, formerly held by current law city manager Tom Golden. And there's two candidates running for that one, Rodney Elliott, who's been a long time elected official and a former state Senate candidate in those and EKU is the other Democratic primary candidate there. She, like Dominic Lay, has worked in State Senator Ted Kennedy's office. So there's a lot of people in Lowell, I think, who have gotten their their feet wet in one way or another and are interested in representing the city in the state house. [00:31:42][41.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:31:43] All right. Perfect. Well, Katie Lannan of GBH News and of course, former reporter for The Lowell Sun, thank you so much for coming on to break down what's going on at your old beat. [00:31:51][8.6]

Katie Lannan: [00:31:52] Thanks for chatting. [00:31:53][0.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:31:56] And that brings us to our favorite segment based on millions of listener interviews conducted over the decades. We've been on the air. Your favorite segment, too. And that, of course, is horse race trivia. Today's a special edition, which offers -100,000 points for every correct answer. So please play at your own risk. And the question is, Jenn. [00:32:14][17.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:32:14] When did the first segment of what is today the meta orange line open? [00:32:20][5.6]

Steve Koczela: [00:32:21] That's a good. [00:32:21][0.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:32:21] One. Yeah, I think it is good again. It's a risky proposition for anyone. So this is a warning to all of our regulars. You might lose all the trivia points we won't dispense to you. So just go for it and clear the decks for us. But that is all the time we have for today. I am Jennifer Smith signing off with Steve Koczela. Our producer is Elena Eberwein. Don't forget to give The Horse Race a review wherever you're hearing us. Now, to help other people find us, subscribe to the Massachusetts Politico playbook and reach out to the MassINC Polling Group if you need any polls done. Thank you all for listening. We'll see you next week. [00:32:21][0.0]

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