Vote choice and support for diverse candidates on the Boston City Council At-Large
Date
2022
DOI
Authors
Dolcimascolo, Elizabeth Diane
Version
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
The last two decades have marked major milestones in the diversity of the leaders of Boston’s city government. The first Black female member of the City Council, Ayanna Pressley, was elected in 2009. Michelle Wu became the first Asian-American woman to serve on the City Council after the 2013 municipal election, and it’s first female or non-White mayor in 2022. Boston elected its first Latina member to the City Council, Julia Mejia, in 2019. Each of these women served on the City Council as one of the four at-large members, which are elected citywide rather than from individual districts. At-large elections have been controversial, and scholarly work finds that this electoral structure disadvantages minority candidates, underrepresents minority voters, and reduces opportunities for candidates of color to win office. How has Boston broken this norm? Using local election results and census data, I estimate a regression model for vote choice by racial and ethnic background and find that Boston voters have shifted to support a more diverse and proportionate City Council At-Large.
Description
License
Attribution 4.0 International