Ayanna Pressley is ‘not surprised’ that Bernie Sanders is polling well in Massachusetts
"That's victory for all of us."
Rep. Ayanna Pressley cast her ballot for Sen. Elizabeth Warren during early presidential primary voting Friday afternoon in Boston. However, she was under no illusions about the local inroads being made by the Massachusetts senator’s progressive rival in the 2020 race, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
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“I’m not surprised that Bernie is doing well here,” Pressley told reporters outside Boston City Hall, after being asked about a poll released Friday showing the Vermont senator leading Warren in her home state.
“When Bernie does well, it’s because progressive values and ideas are doing well,” Pressley added. “And I commend him for that, and that’s victory for all of us.”
The Massachusetts congresswoman, who is one of three of Warren’s campaign co-chairs, added that they’re taking “nothing for granted.”
“That’s including at home,” she said.
Pressley’s comments came just hours before a planned Sanders rally Friday night in Springfield, which the Democratic primary race leader will follow with a Saturday afternoon rally in Boston. Warren, who last campaigned in Massachusetts on New Year’s Eve, is expected to return to the state Tuesday, when she casts her ballot in Cambridge.
During her press conference Friday afternoon, Pressley echoed Warren’s recent argument that she would be a more effective president than Sanders.
“We need more than progressive values to be espoused,” the Boston Democrat said. “We need them to be made real.”
Warren has begun highlighting her detailed plans and support of eliminating the filibuster as reasons she would more effectively implement a progressive agenda; Pressley pointed Friday to the former Harvard Law School professor’s record setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which she credited for helping numerous constituents in Boston.
“She did that when she wasn’t even an elected official … so imagine what she could do as our president,” Pressley said.
The 46-year-old congresswoman and former Boston city councilor emphasized Warren’s focus on policy. When asked about Sanders’s criticism Thursday of the proposed Suffolk Downs redevelopment project, Pressley said that Warren’s plan to address the affordable housing crisis was one of “many reasons” she was supporting the senator’s presidential campaign.
Warren’s plan would double federal investment in low-income housing, incentivize local governments to eliminate restrictive zoning rules, and create “a first-of-its-kind” down-payment assistance program for first-time homebuyers in formerly redlined neighborhoods or communities otherwise harmed by government-sanctioned segregation.
“I appreciate Senator Sanders weighing in on that,” Pressley said of the senator’s Suffolk Downs tweet. “I’m supporting Elizabeth Warren, because I think she has the best plan to address that crisis”
Sanders ripped the current proposal to transform the shuttered horse-racing track into a new mixed-use neighborhood as “more gentrifying luxury developments for the few.” While the plan’s backers note it would create the most affordable housing of any single project in Massachusetts history, local residents in the diverse East Boston neighborhood say the current commitments are not enough to address displacement concerns.
Pressley said she was taking her cues from the municipal elected officials most closely involved in the planning process, specifically naming Boston City Councilor Lydia Edwards, who represents East Boston.
“I’m following the lead of the District 7 city councilor there, who’s been a strident voice and making sure that we’re being as inclusive as possible,” Pressley said. “All politics are local.”
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