Before the Democratic Convention in June, Marty Walsh gave his support to Warren Tolman’s candidacy for attorney general, but on Tuesday afternoon the mayor made it proper at a well-attended rally in Grove Hall. “Everyone knew I was going to be with him, but I didn’t do an official endorsement,” Walsh said of his pre-convention speech in June. “Today’s an official endorsement.”

For Tolman supporters, the Walsh endorsement ideally will help carry their candidate over the finish line. The former state legislator took a couple of hits in the last week, with blowback from a remark he made at a debate in which he called a line of questioning by his opponent, Maura Healey, “unbecoming” and the Globe endorsing Healey. The most recent Globe poll put Tolman and Healey, a former assistant attorney general, in a dead heat with 40 percent of voters undecided.

“The polls have the race neck and neck and I assume that’s where it is,” Tolman told the Reporter. “With 40 percent of the voters still undecided, I’ve got to go out and talk about what I offer.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Tolman pledged to be the “neighborhood attorney general” at an event that brought out more than twenty elected officials, including City Councillors Tito Jackson and Frank Baker, state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry, and state Reps Dan Cullinane and Dan Hunt, along with a handful of religious leaders and more than a few sign-toting supporters. “It’s about standing up for the woman in Dorchester who paid a painter $500 and she never sees him again,” Tolman told the crowd. “She ought to know that the attorney general is her attorney and the attorney general is her fighter.”

And with less than a week to go until the Sept. 9 primary, Walsh pledged to “fully endorse, support, and throw everything behind making sure Warren Tolman is our next state attorney general.” As a follow-up to his pledge, Walsh is expected to attend a women’s rally for Tolman being hosted by Dorcena Forry in the Back Bay on Friday.

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Endorsement corner

Dorchester’s LGBTQ advocacy group DotOUT has endorsed Healey, whose record includes a successful challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act. At an event for DotOUT members at Lower Mills’s Ester restaurant last Thursday, more than two dozen associates chatted with candidates and their loved ones, some of whom were sent in the candidates’ stead.

Steve Kerrigan, one of three lieutenant governor candidates, who was elsewhere on the campaign trail, sent his partner in his place, and received DotOUT’s endorsement. The group also endorsed State Treasurer Steve Grossman for governor and state Rep. Dan Cullinane for the 12th Suffolk race.

Cullinane, who’s in a four-way race in the Democratic primary to retain his recently won House seat, also received At-Large City Councillor Ayanna Pressley’s endorsement separately on Tuesday.
Before the event, candidates were asked to respond to ten questions, one of which asked if they would march in the Southie St. Patrick’s Day Parade if it continued to ban LGBTQ groups from participating. All candidates pledged not to march if the groups continue to be banned.
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"Sheriff Bennett" sign not wanted on Savin Hill Avenue property

It’s been more than two years since the race for Suffolk County sheriff began and Democratic candidate Douglas Bennett has worked hard to make sure voters know his name with his hand-painted “Sheriff Bennett” signs. However, one homeowner on Savin Hill Avenue and his neighbor say the signs posted on the fence at the Maryland Street intersection aren’t wanted and have been removed a number of times.

A few months back, Joe Costa, who lives on Maryland Street, asked his neighbor, Andy Lam, about the “Sheriff Bennett” sign on Lam’s Savin Hill Avenue fence. Lam said he’d already removed the sign three times only to have it reappear soon thereafter, all without his permission. Since that conversation, Costa said he has removed more than four more Bennett replacement signs for Lam as recently as Tuesday.

Costa and Lam said they’d never been approached by Bennett for permission to have the signs posted on their private property, and have never seen him or any campaign workers actually post the signs. “He must come out in the middle of the night and do it like a bandit,” Costa said with a laugh. It might be for the best: “If I see him, I’d curse him out.”

The Bennett campaign did not respond to a request seeking comment. The campaign was ticketed by the city of Boston earlier this summer for illegally posting a campaign sign on public property – on a fence over I-93. Bennett is running to unseat Sheriff Steve Tompkins in the Democratic primary. Costa said he plans to vote for Tompkins.