Elizabeth Warren endorses former Wu aide in state Senate primary challenge
US Senator Elizabeth Warren on Thursday endorsed first-time candidate Daniel Lander, a former aide to Mayor Michelle Wu waging a primary challenge against an incumbent state senator who has clashed with the mayor.
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Warren’s endorsement adds heat to an already-hot primary between Lander, a former Warren campaign volunteer, and state Senator William Brownsberger, a Belmont Democrat and a member of Senate leadership who hasn’t faced an opponent for his seat since 2012.
“I know firsthand that Daniel is a fighter who is ready to make change for the people of Massachusetts,” Warren said in a statement to the Globe. “I have no doubt that Daniel will hit the ground running to lower housing costs, upgrade our infrastructure, and make a real difference for working families.”
While the Senate race marks Lander’s first political campaign, he has experience on the campaign trail, including working on Wu’s 2021 mayoral campaign and Warren’s 2020 bid for president. He also served as a policy fellow during Warren’s 2012 Senate campaign.
In an interview, Lander called Warren his “political hero.”
“Senator Warren, under a Republican Congress, has been able to pass big bills to tackle the affordable housing crisis and bring down prices for seniors,” Lander said.
In endorsing Lander, Warren also offers a bit of political ammunition to Wu, who employed Lander as an aide from November 2021 to January 2026, and has had key pieces of her agenda blocked in the State Senate by fellow Democrats, including Brownsberger.
Brownsberger opposed Wu’s plan to shift the city’s tax rates in an effort to spare homeowners huge spikes in their bills, a move Lander has often referred to in arguing that the Legislature is not doing enough to address the region’s cost-of-living crisis.
While Wu has not yet weighed in on Lander’s race, she recently endorsed Latoya Gayle, another political newcomer running for state Senate in a primary against another Wu adversary, incumbent South Boston Democrat Nick Collins.
At a candidate forum last week at Berklee College of Music, Lander and Brownsberger clashed over the Senate’s relationship with the city.
Lander said Boston’s senators have not done enough to support Wu’s efforts to tackle issues such as housing affordability. Brownsberger acknowledged the ongoing tension with the mayor, describing his relationship with Wu as “a little bit strained,” but insisting he hasn’t harbored any lingering negative feelings.
He and Collins also argued that state lawmakers’ role is not simply to acquiesce to local leaders on issues that can have ramifications beyond those cities and towns.
“We are one Commonwealth, there are 351 cities and towns — it’s entirely appropriate that there should be statewide rules on things like taxes, transportation,” Brownsberger said at the event.
Brownsberger represents the Suffolk and Middlesex District, which includes Fenway, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and Allston in Boston, as well as parts of Cambridge, Watertown, and Belmont.
He was first elected to the Legislature in 2006, and currently serves as Senate president pro tempore, the chamber’s third-ranking Democrat, and has led the chamber’s redistricting efforts. Since winning a special election for Senate in 2011, he has never faced a primary challenge for his seat in the Legislature.
Brownsberger, a former prosecutor and defense attorney, has decades of experience in local elected office, including as a Belmont selectman and chair of the town’s Democratic committee. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2013, losing in a crowded Democratic primary won by now-Representative Katherine Clark.
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