A competitive three-candidate race for sheriff will highlight this year’s party primary elections in Hampshire County, where voters will also pick their party’s choices for a slew of statewide offices including governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. Polls will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. on Tuesday.
Two Democratic candidates for Hampshire County sheriff will be eliminated — Patrick Cahillane is facing a reelection challenge from Yvonne Gittelson and Caitlin Sepeda — and the winner of the party’s nomination is likely to cruise to victory in the Nov. 8 general election since there is no other formal opposition.
Cahillane worked his way up the ranks of the sheriff’s department over the course of a lifetime, having started his corrections career at the now-closed Union Street Jail in 1977 after serving six years in the U.S. National Guard. He was elected sheriff in 2016, when he was deputy superintendent of the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction.
Gittelson, the corrections program specialist for the state education department, oversees educational programming across the state’s correctional system and calls for an expansion of those opportunities in Hampshire County to reduce recidivism. Sepeda, a registered nurse at the Berkshire County jail and a former member of Pelham’s Conservation Commission, has made mental health and substance abuse treatment centerpieces of her pitch to voters.
Both of Cahillane’s opponents worked for his administration at one time and in addition to promoting the issues that motivate them, they have criticized the incumbent’s leadership on the campaign trail and in public forums. Gittelson was the jail’s education coordinator from 2017-21 and Sepeda was a nurse there for nine years, including the bulk of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite Cahillane’s explanations of the state-run budget process for the county jail, and assurances that some of their concerns are misplaced or already being addressed, his opponents have said that the jail is antiquated and run by staff who lack access to the proper technological and training tools to work with the increasingly violent population.
Cahillane has positioned himself as the most qualified and experienced candidate, and has fought back against accusations that some staff are fearful of showing their support for his opponents publicly. Barbara Marean, the jail’s deputy superintendent, resigned Aug. 25 after the Gazette reported that a woman in a state-owned vehicle had allegedly photographed a jail employee’s yard, where he displays a Sepeda sign.
Cahillane set the wheels in motion to order an independent investigation and told the Gazette previously that no one in the department will face retaliation for their political preferences. Sepeda, during the final candidate’s forum also on Aug. 25, alleged that “scare tactics and blatant acts of intimidation of staff in the name of loyalty reign supreme” in the jail and the campaign had taken an “ugly” turn.
Most local legislators are running unopposed for renomination and reelection, including Easthampton state Rep. Dan Carey, Northampton state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, Amherst state Rep. Mindy Domb, and Northampton state Sen. Jo Comerford, all Democrats.
State Sen. John Velis, D-Westfield, is running unopposed in the primary and faces Republican Cecilia Calabrese, Agawam’s city council vice president, in November. Easthampton, Southampton and Holyoke are in the senate district.
Belchertown, Granby and South Hadley residents who vote in the Democratic primary will help decide who might succeed Eric Lesser as state senator in the First Hampden and Hampshire District. State Rep. Jacob Oliveira of Ludlow and Sydney Levin-Epstein of Longmeadow are vying for the nomination, while Lesser competes in the primary for lieutenant governor. The winner will then take on William Johnson of Granby, a Republican, in the general election.
The Democratic race for 8th district representative on the Governor’s Council, which provides advice and consent on gubernatorial appointments such as judgeships as well as pardons and commutations, has the highest number of candidates of any contest on the local primary ballots. The 8th district includes all of the Pioneer Valley and the Berkshires.
The candidates are attorney Shawn Allyn of Agawam, Springfield City Councilor Michael Fenton, North Adams School Committee member Tara Jacobs and attorney Jeffrey Morneau of East Longmeadow. Palmer resident and U.S. Air Force veteran John Comerford is the sole Republican in the race.
In the Berkshires, Hampden, Franklin & Hampshire state Senate district, state Rep. Paul Mark is running for the Democratic nomination against Huff Templeton, a Williamstown activist and former business owner. There are no Republican candidates. Goshen, Huntington, Westhampton and Williamsburg are among the communities in that district.
Top-tier state races also will find their official contenders after voting ends on Tuesday.
Gov. Charlie Baker is not seeking a third term. Although Democrat Maura Healey’s final competitor, state Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz, dropped out of the race in June, Republicans are deciding between Geoff Diehl and Chris Doughty for their nomination.
A Whitman state representative from 2011-19, Diehl took a private sector position as director of business development for TRQ Auto Parts after leaving office. He was the Massachusetts co-chair for former president Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in 2018.
Trump has endorsed Diehl for governor.
Doughty is a first-time candidate for office and holds degrees in economics and business. He started the small auto and appliance parts manufacturer Capstan Atlantic in 1992 and expanded it to a multinational company with several hundred employees.
His running mate for lieutenant governor is former state Rep. Kate Campanale, who represented the 17th Worcester District in the state House from 2015-19. Leah Cole Allen, a state representative for Lynn from 2013-15 and a registered nurse, is running alongside Doughty for the role.
While Doughty-Campanale and Diehl-Allen have divided into camps, voters will determine which combination of candidates for each office they will send to the general election.
If Healey defeats her Republican opponent in November, she would be the first woman elected governor of Massachusetts. Jane Swift served as acting governor from 2001-03. On the Democratic side for lieutnant governor, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, Acton state Rep. Tami Gouveia and Longmeadow state Sen. Eric Lesser are vying for the nomination, and the winner will face either Campanale or Allen on the Republican ticket.
Republicans will also vote on nominating Jeffrey Sossa-Paquette, a Shrewsbury resident running for Congress against U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Worcester.
Quentin Palfrey last week dropped out of the race for attorney general, throwing his support to fellow Democrat Andrea Campbell in her race against Shannon Liss-Riordan. The winner will face Republican attorney James McMahon to replace Healey in November.
Campbell, an attorney and former Boston City Council president, earned Healey’s endorsement this summer. Liss-Riordan is a labor, employment and civil rights lawyer in Boston who campaigned for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 U.S. Senate race; Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., ultimately kept his seat.
Democrats are also asked to decide whether to renominate William Galvin for another term as secretary of the commonwealth or to swap him out with Tanisha Sullivan, president of the Boston chapter of the NAACP. Rayla Campbell of Whitman is running on the Republican side; she ran for Congress in 2020.
Chris Dempsey, leader of the No Boston Olympics campaign in 2015 and former assistant secretary of transportation under Gov. Deval Patrick, is facing Methuen state Sen. Diana DiZoglio in the Democratic race for state auditor. Anthony Amore of Winchester, director of security at the famed Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and a bestselling author of books about art theft, is the sole Republican candidate.
State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, a Democrat, is running unopposed for renomination and reelection.
Brian Steele can be reached at bsteele@gazettenet.com.