Rausch Unseats Incumbent Ross For MA Senate

In one of the few major upsets in the Massachusetts legislative races, Democrat Rebecca Rausch managed to to unseat longtime State Sen. Richard Ross, who has been a Massachusetts state representative and senator dating back to 2004.

The lead flipped several times during vote-counting Tuesday night, with Ross showing a lead as late as midnight, but Rausch evenutally proved victorious. She will now represent the Norfolk, Bristol and Middlesex District.

Rausch thanked Ross for his long public service in her victory speech at the Three Squares Craft Kitchen and Cocktails in Needham, then looked to the future.

"Tonight is about so much more than just winning an election," she said. "The work we’ve done in the last year -- the work that got us to this moment -- has changed the way politics is done in this district.

"We knocked on the doors of voters who had never before been personally contacted by their legislators or candidates," she said. "We showed people that we care about them. We recognized their humanity and their struggles, and they turned out at the polls in record numbers, both in the primary election and today. We revived a conversation that is critical to the exercise of democracy, a conversation that I look forward to continuing throughout my tenure in the senate."

The district includes part or all of Natick, Wayland, Franklin, Wellesley, Millis, Attleboro, Needham, Norfolk, North Attleborough, Plainville, Sherborn and Wrentham.

Rausch's campaign said Ross's refusal to engage in debates and public forums contributed to her win. But she also far outspent the incumbent.

According to state records, the Rausch campaign spent $49,000, compared to Ross's $8,000. The money included more than $2,000 on lawn signs, $4,000 on polling research and thousands more on printing. Bausch's expenditures included a $20,000 contribution to the Democratic State Committee, nearly $8,000 on management and consulting services.

Ross's finance report showed only two expenditures, both "reimbursements."

Rausch, of Needham, graduated with a B.A. from Brandeis University in 2001, received a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law in 2004 and an LL.M from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2011. She's been a licensed attorney for 14 years and a law professor for two years., and was a member of Needham Town Meeting since 2017.

Ross, who attended American University and the New England School of Anatomy, has owned the RJ Ross Funeral Home for the last 40 years. He had been a state senator since 2010, and previously was a state representative from 2004 to 2010. He was a member of the Wrentham Board of Selectmen from 1999 to 2003.

In a questionnaire leading up to the midterm election, Rausch named healthcare as a pressing issue of the campaign: "I will advocate for universal health care, updated school funding, investment in transportation infrastructure, environmental justice, increased transparency, improved voting rights/access, family supports and waste reduction."

Rausch said she spent more than three years working for our state government, as the first ever Electronic Discovery Attorney for the MA Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

"I am also an elected member of my local legislative body, with direct experience hearing constituents, voicing their concerns, and advocating for change that makes our community stronger," she adds.

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