New slate of labor leaders, educators, organizers, and community champions will fight to make Massachusetts work for the many — not just the wealthy and well-connected

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Working Families Party today announced its endorsement of eight candidates for the Massachusetts Legislature, backing a diverse slate of working-class champions who have spent their lives fighting for their communities and are ready to bring that fight to Beacon Hill.

The endorsed candidates include union members, educators, community organizers, local elected officials, and advocates from working-class communities across Massachusetts. Together, they represent a new generation of leadership committed to putting working people at the center of state government.

“For too long, working people have had to fight just to get our issues on Beacon Hill’s agenda,” said Josh Wolfsun, Massachusetts State Director for the Working Families Party. “These candidates have already spent their lives fighting for affordable housing, good jobs, strong schools, immigrant communities, and economic justice. They’re not running to continue business as usual. They’re running to make sure working families come first.”

The Massachusetts Working Families Party endorsement slate includes:

STATE SENATE

• Latoya Gayle (First Suffolk)
• Carey McDonald (Fifth Middlesex)
• Daniel Lander (Suffolk and Middlesex)

STATE HOUSE

• Lorena Betts (16th Middlesex)
• John Drinkwater (17th Middlesex)
• Rep. Tara Hong (18th Middlesex)
• Johnnie McKnight (11th Hampden)
• Celina Reyes (16th Essex)

“Every year, it’s getting harder to live in Massachusetts and raise a family here,” said Latoya Gayle, a mother of four and long-time education advocate challenging incumbent Democratic Senator Nick Collins in Boston. “We deserve leaders who wake up every day focused on lowering costs, expanding opportunity, and making government work for everyday families. That’s why I’m proud to be endorsed by the Working Families Party. Together, we’re building the kind of movement Massachusetts needs — one that puts working people, not wealthy insiders, at the center of our politics.” 

Alongside Gayle, WFP’s slate includes several other endorsed candidates who are taking on entrenched incumbents in the legislature: Daniel Lander, an LGBTQ+ advocate and Warren & Wu policy alum, is challenging Senate President Pro Tempore Will Brownsberger. Johnnie McKnight, a Springfield public school teacher and union representative who turned his life around after being incarcerated at just 12 years old, is aiming to unseat House Rep. Bud Williams in Springfield after falling 250 votes short last cycle. Celina Reyes, a Lawrence city councilor and early childhood educator who organized her own union, is challenging the wealthy landlord House Rep. Francisco Paulino in Lawrence.

The endorsements are also part of a broader strategy to build multiracial working class political power across Massachusetts. The slate includes strong concentrations of candidates in cities like Lowell, Springfield, Lawrence, Malden, and working-class neighborhoods of Boston — communities that have too often been overlooked by the political establishment despite facing some of the state’s most urgent affordability challenges.

WFP candidates are running for three different State Representative seats in Lowell alone — labor advocate John Drinkwater, community organizer Lorena Betts, and freshman Rep. Tara Hong, creating an opportunity to build lasting grassroots power in one of the Commonwealth’s most diverse and fastest-growing cities. Carey McDonald, an at-large City Councilor and staunch community advocate, is running in an open Senate district that draws the largest share of its voters from the working class city of Malden.

“When ordinary people come together, they build the kind of political power that can transform communities,” said Lorena Betts, a community organizer, founder of two community organizations, and former Massachusetts State House legislative aide. “That’s what the Working Families Party is building across Massachusetts, and I’m proud to be part of it. Working families deserve leaders who will fight alongside them, not politicians who forget where they came from.”

The Massachusetts Working Families Party is run by its Organizing Committee, which includes 19 labor unions, grassroots organizations, and community leaders from across the state.

---

The Massachusetts Working Families Party is building a multiracial movement of working people to win economic, racial, and social justice across the Commonwealth. Through organizing, coalition building, and electoral politics, MA WFP works to elect leaders who will fight for working families and challenge concentrated corporate power.