Ayanna Soyini Pressley is an American politician who has served as the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts’s 7th congressional district since 2019. Her district includes the northern three quarters of Boston, most of Cambridge, and parts of Milton, as well as all of Chelsea, Everett, Randolph, and Somerville. She is the first black woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts and the first woman of color to serve in the 100-year history of the City Council.
About Ayanna Pressley in brief
Ayanna Soyini Pressley is an American politician who has served as the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts’s 7th congressional district since 2019. Her district includes the northern three quarters of Boston, most of Cambridge, and parts of Milton, as well as all of Chelsea, Everett, Randolph, and Somerville. Pressley defeated the ten-term incumbent Mike Capuano in the primary election and ran unopposed in the general election. She had previously been elected as an at-large member of the Boston City Council in 2010. She is the first black woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts and the first woman of color to serve in the 100-year history of the City Council. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but raised in Chicago, Illinois, the only child of mother Sandra Pressley who worked multiple jobs to support the family and also worked as a community organizer for the Chicago Urban League. Her father Martin Terrell struggled with addiction and was incarcerated throughout Pressley’s childhood, but eventually earned multiple degrees and taught at college level. Her mother later moved to Brooklyn, where she worked as an executive assistant and later remarried. She left school to take a full-time job at the Boston Marriott Copley Place to support her mother, who had lost her job. She took further courses at Boston University Metropolitan College, also known as MET. During 2009, Pressley served as United States Senator John Kerry’s political director. The 7th district is traditionally Democratic and is the state’s only Democratic district where the majority of residents are not white. The GOP has only nominated a candidate in this district five times since longtime Speaker Tip O’Neill retired in 1986.
However, the 7th is so heavily Democratic that any Republican challenger would have faced nearly impossible odds, so whoever won the Democratic primary would be all but assured of victory in November. With a Voting Index of D+34, the most Democratic district is by far the most heavily Democratic district in New England. The only Republican candidate in the district has received endorsements from the state’s only civil rights group, the New England Civil Liberties Association. The Republicans last put up a challenger in the District’s 8th district in 1998, when it was numbered as the 8th, when the district was numbered 8th. In January 2018, pressley announced her challenge to incumbent United States Representative Michael Capuono in the 2018 Democratic primary nomination for the 7th district. She won 13 of the city’s 22 wards and finished second in three others. Pressley topped the ticket again in November 2013 and November 2015, and placed second in November 2017. In her first year as a City Councilor,. Pressley formed the Committee on Healthy Women, Families, and Communities, which addresses issues such as domestic violence, child abuse, and human trafficking. She worked collaboratively with community members to develop a comprehensive sexual education and health curriculum and update the expectant and parenting student policy. In all,pressley won Boston’s communities of color and many progressive neighborhoods. In the council election of November 2011, she finished first among at- Large candidates with 37,000 votes.
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