With Chang-Diaz's nomination official, Wilkerson loses key LGBT support

Last month state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson's re-election effort was one of the top priorities for Bay State LGBT advocates, but with her defeat in the Sept. 16 Democratic primary and her decision to run for her Second Suffolk district Senate seat as a sticker candidate in November she has lost one major LGBT endorsement, and several other endorsements are still up in the air.

During the primary Wilkerson, a longtime ally of the LGBT community, received endorsements from MassEquality, the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, Bay State Stonewall Democrats, the Gay and Lesbian Labor Activists Network (GALLAN), and DotOUT in her unsuccessful effort to fend off challenger Sonia Chang-Diaz, also a strong LGBT rights supporter. MassEquality, the largest and arguably most influential of the organizations, declined to endorse either Wilkerson or Sonia Chang-Diaz in the general election. The Caucus, Stonewall, GALLAN and DotOUT had not announced whether or not to endorse in the general election in the Second Suffolk race before Bay Windows went to press.

"MassEquality is encouraging our members to vote their conscience and support the candidate that they believe best represents our community's interests," said MassEquality Executive Director Marc Solomon.

During the primary MassEquality devoted substantial resources to Wilkerson's campaign and declared the campaign one of its top two priorities, along with the re-election of openly gay Somerville state Rep. Carl Sciortino. The organization sent out 40,000 pieces of mail on her behalf, including issue advocacy mailings in the district and endorsement mailings to MassEquality supporters. The organization helped organize a fundraiser for her campaign and organized a team of LGBT community leaders to canvass for Wilkerson in Jamaica Plain. MassEquality also did a telephone poll of its members and found that 75 percent of them intended to vote for Wilkerson over Chang-Diaz.

Despite all the resources MassEquality put into her primary campaign it will be sitting out Wilkerson's sticker campaign. For the past several years MassEquality has publicly promised to support the re-election of incumbents who voted to defeat a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, and Wilkerson has been one of the most visible lawmakers opposed to the amendment. But Solomon said after the defeat in the primary MassEquality would no longer be working to help her maintain her seat.

"What changed is that sadly we collectively lost the primary, we lost the election. I can say that we put everything that we had, the PAC and our membership organization, we put everything it had into the race," said Solomon. He declined to comment on why MassEquality had declined to support Wilkerson's sticker campaign.

The Caucus was expected to reach a decision on whether or not to endorse in the Second Suffolk race on Oct. 1, but Caucus co-chairs Arline Isaacson and Gary Daffin did not respond to Bay Windows' requests for information on their endorsement before deadline.

Stonewall was expected to hold a board meeting the evening of Oct. 1, afterBay Windows went to press, to determine whether to endorse in the Second Suffolk general election.

Unlike MassEquality and the Caucus, Stonewall is an explicitly partisan Democratic organization. Stonewall president Steve Iannaccone said despite Chang-Diaz's victory in the Democratic primary and her pro-LGBT stances it is uncertain whether she would receive the organization's support. He said the board might consider supporting Wilkerson, who continues to describe herself as a Democrat despite losing the party's nomination. Iannaccone said in the past Stonewall has never endorsed a write-in candidate running against a Democratic nominee in a general election.

"That hasn't been our past practice, but everything is new," said Iannaccone.

Beyond her LGBT support Wilkerson received widespread institutional support from the Bay State's most powerful elected officials, including Gov. Deval Patrick, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, and Senate President Therese Murray. She also outpaced Chang-Diaz in terms of both fundraising and spending on her campaign. For instance, the Massachusetts Teachers Association and 1199 SEIU, which represents healthcare workers, spent more than $20,000 to pay for mailings, phone banking and organizer salaries on her behalf. Most political observers blame her defeat on voter dissatisfaction over a series of legal and ethical incidents that have generated negative publicity for Wilkerson over the years, including a conviction for failing to pay federal taxes, campaign finance violations, and failure to pay mortgage and condo fees.

After Chang-Diaz narrowly won the primary by a one percent margin, Wilkerson pushed for a recount. Prior to the recount, on Sept. 23, she announced that she intended to run in November as a sticker candidate in order to hold onto the Senate seat she has held for the past 15 years. After election officials counted votes in four precincts - three selected by Wilkerson, one by Chang-Diaz - they found that Chang-Diaz had won the primary by 213 votes (the original tally had Chang-Diaz winning by 228 votes).

Deborah Shah, Chang-Diaz's campaign manager, said there are tentative plans to hold a "unity rally" in support of Chang-Diaz on Oct. 6 with Patrick and Murray, to show the party's support now that she has won the nomination.

Shah said Chang-Diaz has spent this week reaching out to everyone who endorsed Wilkerson to ask for their support, including LGBT organizations. Shah was unsure whether Chang-Diaz had made contact with LGBT organizations, but she said the campaign understands that it may be difficult for these organizations to support Chang-Diaz, given their previous commitment to Wilkerson.

"I think she would hope to have their endorsement. She understands the difficulty that may organizations are facing right now, potentially reversing themselves with the same two candidates up against each other, so we try to be sensitive, but we try to reach out to everyone," said Shah.

Wilkerson's campaign did not respond to multiple calls to comment for this story.

Little ground gained in recount

Given the closeness of the race, Wilkerson's campaign pushed for a recount to try to close the narrow gap and hold onto the Democratic nomination. Wilkerson pushed for recounts in Wards 8, 9 and 12, three of her strongest areas of support within the district, and Chang-Diaz pushed for a recount in her strongest section of the district, Ward 19.

The recount process lasted around five hours, but involved little drama. City election workers counted ballots at eight tables within the City Hall elections department, and volunteers from each campaign monitored the count to ensure it was done correctly. On occasion one of the campaign volunteers from a given side would challenge the validity of a ballot or question a detail of the counting process, but the count generally proceeded without controversy.

Throughout the recount both candidates wandered around the office, chatting with supporters, consulting with campaign strategists and generally monitoring the process. While Wilkerson and Chang-Diaz were standing in relatively close quarters they did not appear to have any verbal interaction with each other during the recount.

After several hours election officials discovered that there was a discrepancy between the number of cast ballots recorded on primary day and the number of ballots brought by election officials to City Hall for the recount. Officials found that 17 ballots were unaccounted for, although it was unclear whether they were ballots that had gone missing or whether the electronic ballot boxes had accidentally double-counted some ballots on primary day. At around 4 p.m. Boyce Slayman, Wilkerson's campaign manager, conceded defeat, saying that the ballots that were unaccounted for would still not close the gap between the Wilkerson and Chang-Diaz votes.

Going forward

After conceding, Slayman reiterated Wilkerson's commitment to go forward as a sticker candidate. Wilkerson won a sticker campaign in 2006 against Chang-Diaz during the latter candidate's first run for the seat, but that campaign took place in a low-turnout primary. The general election will draw a much larger crowd to the polls, with the presidential contest on the ballot, but Slayman said the Wilkerson campaign sees the high turnout as a benefit. In announcing her sticker campaign last week, Wilkerson, the state's only African American state senator, said she would benefit from the expected high turnout in the district's black neighborhoods. The Second Suffolk District includes the South End, Roxbury, Fenway, Jamaica Plain, Chinatown, and parts of Dorchester, Beacon Hill, Back Bay and Mattapan.

"Write-in campaigns are always difficult. We have three things going for us. One, there will be a very high turnout in the November 4th election because of the excitement generated on the presidential level. Two, we have a campaign organization which waged a successful sticker election just two years ago. ... And three, 7000 people voted for us on a sticker campaign two years ago," said Slayman.

It is unclear what support Wilkerson will receive from rank-and-file LGBT voters in the district, particularly without the support of the major LGBT organizations. MassEquality found 75 percent of its supporters in the district supported Wilkerson, but election results from primary day show that support for Wilkerson was generally weak in two of the neighborhoods in the district known for having large LGBT populations, the South End and Jamaica Plain. Chang-Diaz won nearly every precinct in the South End, in some cases by large margins and in some cases by just a handful of votes. She also had strong showings in the wards that make up Jamaica Plain, and in Ward 19, the central JP ward, she defeated Wilkerson 2293 to 800 votes. There is no way to estimate how many votes for either candidate in these wards came from LGBT residents, nor is there an effective way to measure the LGBT vote throughout the district.

When Wilkerson announced her sticker campaign at Prince Hall Grand Lodge in Dorchester last week, several of her supporters described the contest as an effort by the black community to hold onto its only voice in the Senate (see "Sticker shock," Sept. 25). Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner described Chang-Diaz, who is of Latino, Asian and Caucasian descent, of being "someone from another community" who would be unable to represent the interests of the district's black and Latino voters. He said the seat was designed for "a person who was rooted in the politics of the black and Latin community." Jean McGuire, executive director of Metco, who also spoke in favor of Wilkerson at the announcement event, told the Dorchester Reporter that she did not consider Chang-Diaz to be a person of color.

"There are white Hispanics and black Hispanics. ... She is not a person of color," McGuire told the Dorchester Reporter.

Slayman told reporters after the recount that Wilkerson's campaign would not focus on the issue of the candidates' racial and ethnic backgrounds.

"Because of the dynamics that have been introduced, because Ms. Diaz-Chang [sic] has an exotic name and two different ethnic groups, and there has been some exploitation of that by some zealous supporters. Race is not the issue for us, and we wanted to make the issue experience and being certain we send the right person back to the State House who can make the difference," said Slayman.

Chang-Diaz said that while she was proud of her Latino heritage, she did not expect race to be a major issue in the general election.

"My experience over the last five months of talking to voters one on one every day is it's just not something voters are really interested in. Folks are concerned about the strength of the public schools in the city and they're concerned about neighborhood safety and they're concerned about the economic hardships they're facing, and those are the things I'm always going to be focused on talking to voters about," said Chang-Diaz.