Charlie Harris isn’t happy with what he sees as left- and right-wing polarization in Boston. Former District 3 Councillor Frank Baker, he says, takes the middle path and gets his vote for at-large council. “That’s where a councillor should be,” he added, “listening to both sides and coming up with solutions,” Harris said.
“He’s got good values and he’s from Boston,” chimed in Charlie’s brother Paul. “You’ve got outsiders who come here from California and Chicago … and tell people how they should live. You’ve got to listen to people and compromise. Frank’s regular. That’s what we like.”
The Harris brothers, both born and raised in Dorchester, where they knew Baker and his large family, joined the 57-year-old candidate for a fundraiser at Costello’s Tavern in Jamaica Plain last weekend. It was one of several Baker’s team has held in different parts of the city as he seeks to advance into the winner’s circle in the Nov. 4 general election.
One of the events, held at a Savin Hill Avenue restaurant co-owned by his brother James, was hosted by former Mayor Marty Walsh and his partner, Lorrie Higgins. Walsh, the former US Secretary of Labor, is also publicly backing another at-large candidate, Alexandra Valdez, who worked for Walsh when he was mayor.
Baker finished in 5th place in the Sept. 9 preliminary, 4,430 votes behind incumbent Henry Santana, who received 30,670 votes, according to unofficial results from the city’s Election Department. Because there are only four at-large seats on the council, he will have to displace Santana or whoever is in fourth place to win.
Frank Baker addressed supporters during a preliminary election night event at The Nightly in Savin Hill. Seth Daniel photo
Baker won a total of nine precincts in the preliminary, mostly centered around the Savin Hill neighborhood where he lives, and came in second behind Erin Murphy in other Dorchester, South Boston and West Roxbury precincts, suggesting strong support in traditionally more conservative areas of the city.
Baker seemed to agree with the Harris brothers’ assessment of his positioning on the political spectrum.
“I think I talk common sense,” he said. “I talk balance and independence. I think the importance of the City Council is to be an independent body. And I plan to bring that independence. It doesn’t mean I’m on the opposite side. It means if it’s not going to be something good for the city of Boston, I’m not going to be with it. But if there’s things that are happening that are good for the city of Boston, then I’m going to work in commonality with people on that.”
In the preliminary voting, Santana, a first-term incumbent, topped the ticket in just four precincts in and around the Mission Hill neighborhood where he grew up. He placed third in progressive-leaning precincts throughout the city.
The youngest city councillor in Boston at age 29, the Roxbury resident had a hiccup early in his race for reelection as he appeared to be struggling to secure the 1,500 signatures needed to make the ballot and received help from Mayor Michelle Wu. On Monday, he told The Reporter that he is confident he’ll be reelected.
“Boston voters will have to make a decision: To invest in someone who is working for the future or whether we want to go back,” he said. “I don’t think voters want to go back.”
Mayor Wu applauded as Henry Santana celebrated his 2023 victory in the general election. Chris Lovett photo
Santana’s focus on progressive issues has appealed to many voters, said Rachel Poliner, who chairs the group West Roxbury/Roslindale Progressives, which endorsed Wu as well as Santana, who has solid support among many of the city’s key service unions, such as AFSCME, Unite Local 26, and SEIU Local 509.
“He’s someone who’s young, a person of color who is focused on youth engagement, on LGBTQ issues,” she said. “I don’t know what Frank Baker’s focus would be, but I doubt it would be on those issues.”
Santana has in many ways hitched his cart to Wu’s wagon train. During his term in office, he avoided conflict with the mayor and backed her when she vetoed changes the council made to her budget last year.
Baker, on the other hand, says he will bring a degree of practicality to city politics that he says veers too far into national issues.
“I’m running to bring some balance onto the city council,” he said. “I just I think that I have a valuable voice, a common sense-type voice, and a practical approach to government.”
How each candidate will fare in the general election is an open question. On the one hand, the higher turnout in general elections has typically benefitted liberal-leaning candidates, as progressive voters and voters of color tend to vote in higher numbers in those elections than in preliminaries.
On the other hand, with Josh Kraft having withdrawn from the mayoral race and Wu effectively running unopposed, turnout in the general could be lower than in an ordinary mayoral year.
Erin Murphy, who leans more conservative than her at-large colleagues on the council, finished in second place with 43,548 votes in the 2023 off-year election, just 1,093 votes behind top vote-getter Ruthzee Louijeune. In this month’s preliminary, Murphy finished in the third slot behind Julia Mejia, a third-term councilor from Dorchester, who trailed Louijeune by 3,255 votes, according to unofficial results. The gap between Murphy and Santana, meanwhile, was more than 8,300 votes.
“I hope people focus on the city council race because it’s important,” Poliner said. “And the at-large race has two very different directions in play.”
Baker says he believes there will be a focus on the council race and it will play to his favor in the final.
“I think there’s places that are going to vote for me that underperformed in the preliminary,” he said. “I need to get in front of everybody, whether they’re old Boston that grew up here, or people that just moved here, they all have a voice if they’re voters here.”
