Miranda wins five-way primary for Roxbury-based state Senate seat
Two-term state rep vows to be a voice for young people 'struggling to survive and thrive'
By 
STATE REP. LIZ MIRANDA, the daughter of Cape Verdean immigrants, who grew up in a troubled Roxbury neighborhood and went on to Wellesley College, will move on from the Massachusetts House to the Senate after winning Tuesday’s five-way Democratic primary for the Roxbury-based Second Suffolk Senate seat.
Miranda, 42, who worked as a community organizer and was inspired to seek public office four years ago after her brother Michael was shot and killed in 2017, is poised to take the seat being vacated by Sonia Chang-Diaz, who gave up the post to run for governor. No Republican is vying for the seat in November.
After addressing several hundred supporters at the Prince Hall Grand Lodge in Dorchester, Miranda said in an interview that her win is a victory for young people of color.
“I think it represents that kids that are born and raised in the city have a fighting chance,” she said. “This win, for me, is for black kids, BIPOC kids, kids who grew up in places like Boston, struggling to survive and thrive, to know nothing is impossible.”
According to unofficial tallies on the Boston Open Election Results Portal, Miranda had 34 percent of the vote, followed by Elugardo with 27 percent, Wilkerson with 21 percent, Culpepper with 15 percent, and Grant with 3 percent.
The district includes large chunks of Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan and Jamaica Plain.
Miranda and Elugardo, who were both elected to the House in 2018, were able to use the power of their standing to mount strong campaigns. Wilkerson, a once-rising star who flamed out amid an escalating pattern of wrongdoing that ended in federal prison on corruption charges, was attempting a comeback 14 years after she voted out of the Senate seat. Culpepper, a pastor at the Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Dorchester and former regional counsel to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, had strong ties in the district, but was unable to convert them into political might.
“I try to be a different kind of leader,” said Miranda. “I get things done, but I’m also trying to bring folks closer to power.” She said she knows the experience of living in the community “when no one outreached to me.”
“I feel like this is a moment to go into the Massachusetts Senate from the blackest district in the state, and say, it’s time to bring equity to Blue Hill Avenue,” she said.