The Atlantic

Ayanna Pressley's Win Is the Biggest Upset Yet for Progressives

There wasn’t much daylight on policy matters between the Boston city councilor and 10-term incumbent Mike Capuano. But she still beat him by 18 points.
Source: Brian Snyder / Reuters

Representative Mike Capuano was hoping that Massachusetts voters would opt for his decades of experience over the tantalizing gleam of a fresh face.

They didn’t.

Just more than an hour after polls closed on Tuesday night, the 10-term Democrat with a robust progressive voting record suddenly conceded to his über-progressive challenger, the Boston-city-council member Ayanna Pressley. “Clearly the district wanted a lot of change,” Capuano said sadly to a quiet room full of supporters. “We’ve done everything we could do to get this thing done … I’m sorry it didn’t work

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