Analysis: New councilors sell progress, but not change

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Spending on local elections still matters in New Bedford. Knocking on doors still matters — enough to change who wins.

For the surprise victors of this year’s City Council races, the challengers James Roy and Scott Pemberton followed the recipe that often leads to success in New Bedford, a post-election analysis shows. This recipe does not require that candidates share detailed policy plans, or participate in media interviews, or answer any questions at all.

All it takes is planting your feet on people’s doorsteps and representing change — but not too much change.

Take Pemberton, for example, who beat the four-term City Council incumbent, one-time mayoral candidate, and former Chief of Staff to the former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank: Maria Giesta.

Pemberton did not participate in most interviews, including multiple requests from The Light to talk about the budget, housing, or police. But a reporter, going for an evening walk in Ward 2, was liable to run into Pemberton in the middle of his huge door-knocking effort. Fliers in hand, Pemberton said he had already knocked on almost 1,000 doors personally. (This happened in September, months ahead of the election.)

Pemberton’s energetic self-introduction to voters may have literally changed the landscape of the Ward 2 election, tilting the entire field in his favor. In the preliminary (in which only the at-large race was contested), Ward 2 had the lowest voter participation: a pitiful 3.8%. But in the general election, there was an astonishing (for New Bedford) 14% turnout in the precinct where Pemberton lives.

The turnout in Pemberton’s home neighborhood (precinct 2E) eclipsed the citywide turnout of 11.3%, bested some precincts in the perennially active Wards 1 and 5, and was more than 10 points higher than other Ward 2 precincts (2A and 2B saw 2.2% and 3.7% turnout on Tuesday, respectively).

Pemberton changed who voted, and he won. It may not matter that Pemberton never answered most questions that Giesta did. Or that when he did, in a podcast interview with The Light’s columnist, Jack Spillane, his answers were largely evasive or nonspecific.

Pemberton knocked on hundreds, maybe thousands of doors. And he won — by 17 votes. (Candidates have until Nov. 14 to file a recount, which some observers expect Giesta to do.)

The extraordinary commitment to door-knocking is one of the few similarities that Pemberton and Roy share. Roy, a candidate who signaled progressive values, chose to participate in interviews and, in fact, bared his soul like no other candidate did on a public stage.

In an interview with The Light, Roy responded to a claim that he was attempting to hide his past after it became known that he petitioned to seal court records of criminal charges filed against him, which were ultimately dropped. In the very first question of this interview, Roy told the story of how his parents passed away, and how the family’s generational struggle with substance abuse derailed his life, but that it was not enough to prevent him from earning a law degree, eventually buying a home, being in recovery for over a decade now, or becoming a teacher and father along the way.

Roy said, “It’s a part of my identity that I think I share with many folks in New Bedford” — and he was right. Roy’s story connected with hundreds of supportive social media commenters, and he raised $6,358 in October (about as much as he had raised in total before then) after the interview was published.

But before and even after that interview, Roy always said the focus of his campaign was knocking on doors. Similar to Pemberton, he estimates knocking on thousands of doors around New Bedford — and the evidence of talking to people in his home neighborhood showed up in the election results.

James Roy won Ward 5. A non-incumbent won New Bedford’s most politically active ward — where the majority of council candidates, current councilors, the mayor, and several state legislators live, and which had by far the highest turnout. Roy did not outspend all other candidates, so that could not explain his success. And despite his well-received interview, he offered virtually no policy specifics to satiate these politically-involved constituents. 

But Roy was always confident that he was knocking on the most doors.

And in his home ward, Roy won almost one-third of all the votes cast for him in this election (1,204 of them out of 3,872 total). In Ward 5 he beat out the city-wide vote-leader (Ian Abreu, who got 1,155 votes in Ward 5) and the council’s current president (Shane Burgo, who got 1,051 votes in Ward 5).

Progress, but not change

The other similarity between Pemberton and Roy gets to the peculiar, sometimes parochial nature of New Bedford’s traditional and conservative voters, who also live in one of the nation’s bluest states.

Former New Bedford mayor John Bullard has a line that he still trots out when speaking to a local crowd, which he uses to explain New Bedford’s sometimes contradictory voters: “People want progress, but they don’t want change.”

While several factors may explain Tuesday’s surprising election results for the two newcomer city councilors, Bullard’s pearl of wisdom may best capture why Roy and Pemberton were able to shock New Bedford’s establishment: they offered something new, but nothing weighty enough to sink a ship.

Looking at Roy’s website, for example, will invite you to, “Join the Movement for Change.” He says he’ll “fight for policies that make housing affordable,” that he’ll “champion policies that help [small businesses] grow and thrive,” and that he’ll “continue working alongside immigrant families.” But nowhere does he mention what any of these policies are that he is championing.

In a series of issues-based interviews with The Light, Roy said he’d work to get the city’s vacant properties developed — work that’s already happening in the Building New Bedford plan (though far too slowly, critics say). About the police, Roy said he had “skimmed” two external reports that recommended policy changes, but said he mainly hoped to focus on transparency with the department and hiring more officers. On the budget, Roy said he wouldn’t cut schools or libraries (funding to both of these was restored after initial cuts this year).

So it may be hard to pin Roy down on major points of disagreement with what the council is currently doing — even though he’s branded himself as the “change” candidate. His well-communicated personal story may have felt like “a breath of fresh air blowing through the stagnant city council chambers,” as one online commenter wrote, but Roy doesn’t disagree with the council on all that much.

Or, as Bullard might say, progress but not change.

Meanwhile Pemberton did not participate in these issue-related interviews with The Light. In a separate forum hosted by The Light’s columnist Jack Spillane, Pemberton evaded specifics when asked how to encourage more housing development.

“We can’t stand in the way of new housing projects,” he answered at first. Spillane followed up, “Well how do you intend to address that 4,000 shortage [of housing units in New Bedford]?“

“Well, just basically … we have to make cuts to the budget. We have to make significant cuts to the budget,” Pemberton responded.

“We’ll talk about the budget as we go on,” Spillane said. “At this portion of the conversation I’d like to talk about housing.”

Pemberton responded, “We have to be able to help the young buyers be able to buy a house… and we got to work with planning,” he said before trailing off.

To Ward 2 voters, Pemberton may have represented an alternative option, maybe even one that voters recognized from their own doorstep. But he did not align with any meaningful policy. And it likely only helped him that Giesta, in all the interviews she participated in, framed herself as the most status-quo, “business-as-usual” candidate.

Giesta told The Light, for example, that she wouldn’t lobby for more state aid or try to shape the mayor’s budget proposal, because “I’m realistic about what I can and cannot do in my role as a city councilor.” Furthermore, Giesta said she never had tried to shape the budget or get more state aid during her tenure.

“I know it’s not going to go anywhere,” Giesta said.

In contrast, Pemberton was someone new. With a lack of specific policy objectives, voters had no downsides to consider.

Following the money

Lastly, money still plays a role in New Bedford’s politics. And knowing when and where to spend it still makes a big difference.

Brian Gomes, the veteran politician first elected 34 years ago, exemplifies the strategy. Gomes was among the leanest, but most targeted spenders. He did very little spending throughout most of the election season, and did not have anywhere close to the most resources. (He also did not participate in interviews with The Light about housing, police, or the budget.)

But in October, late in the game, Gomes dumped $885 dollars into WBSM advertising — the talk-radio station where New Bedford’s political junkies hang out for news, opinion, and gossip. 

Ian Abreu, New Bedford’s overall biggest fundraiser and spender, also knows the strategy. But Abreu leaves nothing to chance: he spent almost $5,600 on WBSM advertising in October alone — including blanketing the website with banner ads on Election Day. (This was more than most candidates spent throughout the entire election season.)

Naomi Carney, the 10-year incumbent who found herself with an unexpected mountain to climb (in seventh place and behind three non-incumbent challengers after the preliminary), leaned into the same strategy. Carney spent more than $8,300 in October, of which $1,406 went to WBSM. (Carney also spent more than $2,000 on an in-person fundraiser and almost $3,000 on mailers, all in October).

The biggest spenders, in order, among all candidates between August and October were Carney, Roy, and Abreu. (Roy preferred Facebook advertising and palm cards, rather than WBSM advertising.) The top finishers in the race were Abreu and Roy. The biggest climbers were Carney and Roy. 

Pemberton and Giesta add further evidence that spending political dollars where the politically-inclined spend time (and doing so just before the election) is the winning strategy. 

Overall, Giesta spent more on this election than Pemberton did. But in October, that reversed: Pemberton spent $540 (almost all of which went to WBSM) while Giesta spent only $265 (none of which went to WBSM). 

In summary, the candidates who knocked on the most doors, spent the smartest money, and offered “change” — but not too much — followed the formula that most often leads to victory in New Bedford. And it worked. 

Email Colin Hogan at chogan@newbedfordlight.org

Editor’s note: John K. Bullard  is a co-founder of The New Bedford Light. The Light’s newsroom is scrupulously independent. Only the editors decide what to cover and what to publish. Founders, funders and board members have no influence over editorial content.

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