Tania Fernandes Anderson on Tuesday agreed to plead guilty to charges in a federal case in which prosecutors allege she gave a former staffer and $13,000 bonus, then took a $7,000 kickback from the staffer.
As part of her plea agreement, she has vacated the District 7 City Council seat, paving the way for what has already become Boston’s most populated district council race for 2025.
So far, seven challengers have either filed with the Office of Campaign and Public Finance (OCPF).
They are:
• Said Abdikarim, director of policy advocacy and civic engagement for African Community Development of New England, is making his second run for a Council seat, having run at-large in 2021. He has raised more than $25,000 since December.
• Said Ahmed, executive director of United Somali Youth and deputy director of the Somali Development Center, launched a campaign for the 7th Suffolk District last year, but did not appear on the ballot. This year he has so far raised more than $35,000 in his bid to unseat Fernandes Anderson.
• Mavrick Afonso, the director of external affairs at the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, reports $25,115 in contributions for the month of March .
• Samuel Hurtado, who served as an aide and advisor to former Mayor Kim Janey and now is the city’s Supplier Diversity business manager, launched his campaign in January and reported $15,385 in contributions as of February 28.
• Tchad Cort, a business owner and transportation specialist with Boston Public Schools, filed with OCPF earlier this month. She has not yet reported campaign contributions.
• Natalie Juba-Sutherland, a client service associate with Bank of America, filed with OCPF this month and has not yet reported campaign contributions.
• The Rev. Miniard Culpepper, who in 2022 ran for the 2nd Suffolk District state Senate seat and placed fourth out of five candidates. He has not yet reported campaign contributions.
Also not to be discounted is the Rev. Roy Owens, a perennial candidate who in the 2021 preliminary balloting came in second to Fernandes Anderson, with 1,300 votes.
Owens, whose campaign tactics include driving through the district with a megaphone atop his car and distributing photocopied campaign literature with fanciful fabrications about his opponents, demonstrated one of the features of an eight-way race: The more candidates running, the fewer votes one needs to make it past the preliminary. Such a dynamic can favor candidates with a small, loyal base.
Preliminary elections in Boston have suffered from notoriously low turnout in recent years. The 2021 race saw just 20% of registered voters cast ballots. If this year’s crop of candidates are vying for a number of voters similar to the 2021 turnout — 7,626 voters — they could see a similarly low threshold for making it past the September preliminary which will winnow the field down to two candidates.
To a much greater extent than in citywide races, winning candidates in district races need to set a target for how many votes they need to win the preliminary and general election, knock doors of likely voters — those who turn out in preliminary elections, identify those voters most likely to support them, then, on Election Day, make sure those voters are turning out to vote.
Such an operation requires a good number of volunteers and usually campaign staff to coordinate volunteers. Add in the cost of a campaign office, website and campaign literature, and the costs go into the tens of thousands of dollars.
Fernandes Anderson raised $40,468 in advance of the Sept. 14, 2021 preliminary, in which she dominated with 2,038 votes. In the seven-way 2023 race for a vacant District 3 seat in Dorchester, John Fitzgerald raised 181,215 in advance of the preliminary and prevailed with 2,785 votes before going on to win in the final.
With candidates already raising funds, residents of the Roxbury, Dorchester, Fenway and South End precincts in District 7 can expect door-knocking to begin as early as late spring. Registered candidates will receive nomination papers by April 30.
At-large
The incumbent at-large candidates are (in order of the number of votes they received in the 2023 election) current Council President Ruthzee Louijeune, Erin Murphy, Julia Mejia and Henry Santana.
Also running are challengers Alexandra Valdez, director of the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs; Café Ula co-owner Marvin Mathalier; Will Onuoha, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Fair Housing and Equity; and Reggie Steward, a director of community relations for the City of Boston, Dorchester resident Michael Grant and Brighton resident John Foy. Potentially in the running is former District 3 Councilor Frank Baker, who last week reportedly told sources he is considering the at-large race.
This article originally appeared on theflipside.news.
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