Longtime Rep. Angelo Puppolo faces challenge from the left in Michael Lachenmeyer

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Primaries are rare for sitting state representatives in Massachusetts, especially ones who have been in office as long as Rep. Angelo Puppolo, a Springfield Democrat.

For nearly 20 years, Puppolo has represented the 12th Hampden District, which covers all of Wilbraham along with portions of Springfield, East Longmeadow, and Monson. Seeking an 11th term after having opted not to run for an open state Senate seat in recent years, Puppolo appears to have his feet planted firmly in the House of Representatives, where he is among the most senior members from western Massachusetts. He says he offers “strong, steady leadership” during a tumultuous time.

“Your first year, nobody even knows who you are,” Puppolo said of the Massachusetts Legislature. “In the times that we’re in, there’s no substitute for experience.”

But Michael Lachenmeyer, the 27-year-old educator and activist running to unseat Puppolo, says it’s time for a change. Come Election Day on Tuesday, Sept. 1, the hopeful, backed by the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter, hopes to find himself among a wave of left challengers finding success across the country as frustration mounts not only against Republicans, but long-sitting Democrats, too.

“We’re really in a moment that demands some real urgency,” he told The Shoestring. “There’s a lot of people in our community who are struggling to stay in Massachusetts.”

Puppolo has said he’s “taking nothing for granted” in the race. His campaign has spent some $70,000 since the beginning of the year, mostly on printing, mailing, and consulting, according to state campaign finance data.

Lachenmeyer has spent about one-fourth that amount in the same period, with major expenses including radio ads and consulting.

Puppolo had nearly a quarter million dollars in his campaign fund at the end of July. Contributions this year include money from unions — particularly in the building trades — a few political action committees like the Greater Boston Real Estate Board and the Massachusetts Dental Society, and local business figures like executives from Big Y Foods, USA Waste and Recycling, and Peter Pan buses.

Lachenmeyer had $15,000 on hand at the end of July, and has poured $20,000 of his own money into his campaign this year. A Shoestring analysis found that 85% of those who gave to his campaign were small donors who contributed $100 or less. During this election cycle, 41% of Puppolo’s funds came from small donors.

Both candidates have also been beneficiaries of independent expenditures. The political action committees representing the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, and the labor union 1199 Service Employees International Union spent more than $8,000 combined on digital ads and direct mail supporting Puppolo. The Massachusetts Teachers Association’s PAC spent $8,000 on digital ads for Lachenmeyer.

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After spending his young adulthood involved in various progressive organizations and campaigns — working for Tahirah Amatul-Wadud’s 2018 primary challenge of U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, founding an Indivisible chapter on his college campus, and leading the Sunrise Movement hub in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he spent a year as teacher through AmeriCorps — Michael Lachenmeyer said he “started thinking about the situation progressives are in in western Mass” after returning to the area where he grew up.

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“I was worried that progressives were kind of just smashing our heads against the wall,” he said. “So I started thinking, ‘How could we reshape the terrain to make the local situation a bit more friendly towards progressive candidates?’ So I started to believe that progressives should challenge as many of these seats as possible.”

Lachenmeyer declared his campaign over a year in advance of the primary and has laid out a policy platform — including Medicare for All at the state level, a local choice for municipalities to opt-in to rent stabilization, and support for municipally-owned utilities — that he says speak to the biggest issue facing residents of the 12th Hampden: affordability.

“There are a lot of seniors in our community who are working into their 70s or even 80s because they feel like they can’t retire, or young people who can’t afford to move out of their parents’ homes,” he said.

For Lachenmeyer, that issue stems from a number of sources, including high housing and healthcare costs and poor transit access. He said Puppolo hasn’t done enough to address those kinds of systemic issues draining money from voters’ bank accounts.

Puppolo identified many of the same issues as priorities.

“Affordability is something that we’ve continued to address,” he said, with the caveat that there are many rising costs that are out of the Legislature’s control. He said he has worked to support green energy, and backed recent healthcare bills to invest in primary care and protect people with medical debt.

Before his election to the Legislature, Puppolo worked at his family’s plumbing and heating business, graduated law school at Western New England College and became a practicing attorney, and was elected to the Springfield City Council, as his father had been before him. He served as that body’s president before voters sent him to the Statehouse, where his current list of sponsored legislation contains a significant number of bills filed alongside more junior members of the western Massachusetts delegation on issues ranging from vacant properties to healthcare.

Healthcare is one of many issues on which Lachenmeyer, who favors establishing a single-payer system, has criticized Puppolo. When asked about his support for establishing single-payer healthcare in Massachusetts, Puppolo told The Shoestring that “we’ve made progress on that,” referring to legislation that would create a commission to further study the issue but which has not yet been approved by the full Legislature.

“I’m not opposed to healthcare for all,” Puppolo said, “but whatever we do, it’s gotta be permanent and I think there’s where the sticking point is. It’s very easy to stand there and beat your chest and say we want this, that, and the other thing, but when you don’t have the funding for it and you can’t sustain it long term, it really is of no value.” He likened the issue to tuition-free community college, which he says took shape over a number of years before state lawmakers made it a reality in 2024.

Mass-Care, the campaign behind the single-payer healthcare bill in Massachusetts, lists Lachenmeyer as one of the candidates who supports the passage of their bill, “An Act establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts.” Puppolo is not a cosponsor of the bill and is not on Mass-Care’s list. That group has argued that the bill would guarantee state residents publicly financed, quality healthcare while eliminating billions of dollars of healthcare expenses related to billing, administrative waste in the insurance industry, and other costs.

Puppolo said what he is most proud of from his tenure in the House is not any particular piece of legislation, but his ability to “bring home the bacon.”

“We gotta really fight for every penny and every dollar that we can get,” Puppolo said. He named Springfield’s new courthouse project and the allocation of Fair Share Amendment funds — a tax on incomes over $1 million that voters passed in a ballot referendum in 2022 — as successes. He said he is looking towards changing the state’s school funding formula and fighting for “west-east” rail as priorities for the future.

Recently, Puppolo has appeared in person to highlight this work, including at Rick’s Place, a Wilbraham grief counseling center, and Monson Public Schools, for which he said he secured $775,000 and $70,000 in funding, respectively. That funding comes through amendments to the state budget, he told The Shoestring.

“I have to advocate for them and indicate why they are important to the district and Commonwealth and what benefits they will provide,” he said.

Lachenmeyer pushed back, noting that Puppolo voted against putting the Fair Share Amendment to voters. (Puppolo attributed this to “confusion” and concern over the long-term sustainability of the measure.)

“The issues that are really killing our community are systemic ones,” Lachenmeyer said. “It’s obviously really important, as well, to get money for local schools and other projects, something I would like to see happening, but if we don’t deal with some of these systemic issues like healthcare, we’re going to still suffer.”

Puppolo also highlighted constituent services at his district office in Wilbraham as a strength.

“We’re there to answer questions to help people get through the red tape,” he said. “Whether it’s an unemployment issue, whether it’s a Department of Revenue issue, whether it’s a Registry of Motor Vehicles issue, a lot of times, people just don’t know where to navigate. So when they come to me, we get results and I get them pretty fast.”

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Puppolo has touted his perfect attendance for roll call votes in the current session of the Legislature as a demonstration of his commitment to his constituents. But Lachenmeyer’s contention is that not everyone is satisfied with the way he votes.

One vote over which Lachenmeyer has specifically called out Puppolo in his campaign is a 2016 roll-call vote on an amendment that would have criminalized the use of public restrooms that did not correspond with one’s “physical gender” with possible jail time and a fine up to $5,000.

Asked about this vote, Puppolo said “My record overall is solid and to single out a vote over 10 years ago is not a true snap shot of my support for equality,” and pointed towards support for legislation against book bans, conversion therapy, and for the Shield Act, which protects reproductive and gender-affirming care in Massachusetts.

Earlier this summer, Lachenmeyer also accused Puppolo of failing to properly disclose his financial holdings. Those accusations deal primarily with the completeness of details about each of the companies in which Puppolo invests, which include holdings in Eversource and Comcast, two utilities operating within the district, according to statements of financial interest obtained by The Shoestring.

“How can we expect our politicians to regulate big business if they’re profiting off of it?” Lachenmeyer asked during his interview.

To that end, the top priority he mentioned in his interview with The Shoestring is a ban on stock trading for state legislators.

Asked about Lachenmeyer’s accusation, Puppolo said “everything’s publicly disclosed” and called Lachenmeyer a “young kid trying to make a name for himself. People see through those kinds of arguments.”

“It’s not like the federal level where you’re looking at different candidates may have a lot of influence,” he said. He argued that state legislators all over the country often have retirement accounts and 401(k)s, for example, from other jobs. “To ban that is absolutely, in my opinion, absurd,” he said, adding that stock ownership “has got nothing to do with my legislative duties at all.”

Though no such policy currently exists at the state level in Massachusetts, or seemingly any state, some lawmakers like U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, have argued that both federal and state legislatures should move in that direction.

Both candidates have been keeping up a physical presence in the district in the lead-up to Election Day. Puppolo has appeared alongside Sheriff Nick Cocchi at his annual cookout, and Gov. Maura Healey at Rick’s Place.

Lachenmeyer has been canvassing alongside the River Valley Democratic Socialists of America, who have endorsed him.

“We’re thrilled to join UAW Region 9A in endorsing a former union organizer and democratic socialist who will fight for working families on Beacon Hill,” chapter co-chair Sasha Morsmith said in a statement. “Michael will stand up to the Democratic establishment that has failed to provide better lives for working people in Massachusetts despite functional one-party control.”

Aside from Puppolo’s recent appearances, neither candidate has highlighted significant endorsements from other elected officials in their campaign materials. Instead, both appear to have turned towards unions and other groups.

In addition to the DSA and UAW, Lachenmeyer has earned endorsements from the Massachusetts Teachers Association and the state’s Council on American Islamic Relations.

Puppolo’s endorsements include 1199 Service Employees International Union, who he has joined on the picket line at Boston Medical Center, as well as the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 104, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 7, the Western Mass Building Trades Unions, the Massachusetts Nurses Association, and others.

“Rep. Puppolo has been a steadfast advocate for nurses, healthcare professionals, and the patients we serve every day,” wrote Katie Murphy, an ICU nurse and president of the union, in a statement. “We look forward to continuing our work with him preserving healthcare access, protecting frontline caregivers, and advancing policies that strengthen patient care.”

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