Rayla Campbell Says She Will Run For Congress Again In 2022
By Tom Joyce | December 2, 2020, 15:02 EST
This year was round one for Rayla Campbell.
The Republican from Randolph who ran a write-in campaign for the United States House of Representatives in the Massachusetts Seventh Congressional District plans to run again in 2022. This year, she ran against U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Dorchester).
“I’m hoping it will be an even playing ground,” Campbell told New Boston Post in a telephone interview on Tuesday morning. “I’ll have two full years to campaign. Hopefully, we won’t be in COVID when it comes time to go doorknocking and collect signatures. I was at a complete disadvantage this year. I had about two weeks to collect signatures and they really didn’t want me on the ballot at all, throwing all of these obstacles in my way. But I’m not going away. They’re not going to intimidate or scare me and I’m going to keep fighting for what’s right and my country.”
First interested in running for state representative in the winter, Campbell announced her run for the U.S. House seat in early April 2020. She came up short of the 1,000 signatures required to appear on the Republican primary ballot. She then sought the Republican nomination via a write-in campaign where she received 1,202 votes, short of the 2,000 votes required to make the November ballot. Ultimately, she ran a write-in campaign and received at least 695 votes in the general election, as Pressley won re-election to a second term.
Next time around, however, Campbell sees advantages.
For starters, she will have far more time to collect signatures. Nomination papers for candidates are available 15 weeks before the first filing deadline, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s web site. In 2020, Campbell announced her candidacy about one month before those papers were due.
Second, it’s possible the government restrictions on the populace’s activity amid the coronavirus pandemic will not be as prevalent in two years.
And she will come into the race with experience running. That experience includes building a following (she has more than 12,000 likes on Facebook), earning name recognition, making political connections (including finding donors), and holding campaign events. Plus, she already has a campaign web site as well as lawn signs with stakes.
‘I just think it makes me a stronger candidate,” Campbell said. “I’ve been getting a lot of national attention as one of the 30 African-American conservatives running for Congress this time around. Having this experience — I wouldn’t recommend everybody go through this same experience — and building this base that’s growing every day, it’s pretty amazing. I feel stronger with the people behind me and knowing I have so much support. It encourages me to keep fighting for everybody.”
On the issues, Campbell has said she is a conservative Republican who supports President Donald Trump and first responders. She is pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-school choice; she opposes the Green New Deal and lowering the voting age to 16. She wants to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States and wants to expand Opportunity Zones to help people in her mostly urban district.
Campbell said in 2022, she expects that education will be a bigger issue given the in-person learning time many students have lost during the coronavirus emergency.
“I think our major problem is education and these children not being in schools,” she said. “What are we doing to our youth? We have teachers trying to indoctrinate our children when they should be telling them how beautiful this country is, what it was like before, and what it’s like now. We shouldn’t be holding ourselves inside afraid to live because of a virus.”
Campbell does not support Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Although the 2022 midterm election is nearly two years away, Campbell said she plans to be active in Massachusetts politics in 2021, as well — with her campaign and others.
“I am going to be out there a lot,” she said. “We’re going to be doing a lot of fundraisers because we’re going to have a lot of ads; we’re going to bombard people with ads. And we’re going to help people running for some of these smaller, local offices, including Billy Tauro. He’s running for Mayor in Somerville and he’s a great friend of mine.
“I’m also trying to help the GOP and hopefully Jim Lyons stays in as chairman,” she added. “A lot of people want to blame him, but you have a lot of infighting and backstabbing from state committee members. There are state committee members who want to destroy candidates including me. They need me in the Republican Party. It’s all old white people. People are looking to me to lead. I’ve gotten so many calls from people asking for advice on how I run and I’ve just learned this process myself. It makes me confident that I can be a leader for this party.”
Campbell also said she plans to help people campaign in New Hampshire and thinks conservatives in Massachusetts and New Hampshire should work together.
It’s unclear if the Seventh District as it currently exists will remain intact following the 2020 U.S. Census. State legislators are due to re-draw the districts, likely in 2021, to keep them roughly equal in population.
The Massachusetts Seventh is a majority-minority district, meaning the majority of the people who live in it are not white. It is a D+34 district, according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, meaning it is one of the most heavily Democratic-voting districts in the country.
The 38-year-old Campbell is a mother of three children and works from home processing claims for geriatric long-term care insurance clients.
The Committee to Elect Ayanna Pressley and Pressley’s Congressional office could not be reached for comment on Sunday or Monday.
Updates on Campbell’s campaign are available on her Facebook page www.facebook.com/RaylaForCongress.
The current Massachusetts Seventh Congressional District includes the following towns and cities:
Massachusetts Seventh Congressional District — known a the ‘Minority-Majority District.’ Source: Massachusetts Legislature web site
Middlesex County:
city of Cambridge (Wards 1, 2, and 3; Ward 4, Precinct 1; Ward 5; Ward 10, Precinct 3; Ward 11) (which includes East Cambridge and parts of North Cambridge)
cities of Everett and Somerville
Norfolk County:
town of Milton (Precincts 1, 5, and 10); town of Randolph
Suffolk County:
city of Chelsea
city of Boston (Wards 1 and 2; Ward 3, Precincts 7, 8; Ward 4; Ward 5, Precincts 1, 2, 2A, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10; Ward 7, Precinct 10; Wards 8, 9, and 10; Ward 11, Precincts 1–8; Ward 12; Ward 13, Precincts 1, 2, 4–6, 8, 9; Wards 14 and 15; Ward 16, Precincts 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11; Wards 17 and 18; Ward 19, Precincts 7, 10–13; Ward 20, Precinct 3; Wards 21 and 22);
City of Boston Wards
Matching Wards With Neighborhood
Ward 1: East Boston
Ward 2: Charlestown
Ward 3, Precincts 7 and 8: South End and Chinatown
Ward 4: Fenway and Kenmore Square
Ward 5, Precincts 1, 2, 2A, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10: Back Bay and Bay Village
Ward 7, Precinct 10: small southern portion of South Boston
Wards 8 and 9: South End
Ward 10: Mission Hill
Ward 11, Precincts 1-8: Roxbury
Ward 12: Roxbury
Ward 13: north Dorchester
Ward 14: Mattapan and south Dorchester
Ward 15: Dorchester
Ward 16, Precincts 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11: south Dorchester
Ward 17: south Dorchester
Ward 18: Hyde Park, south Mattapan
Ward 19, Precincts 7, 10-13: Roslindale
Ward 20, Precinct 3: small portion of Roslindale
Ward 21: Allston
Ward 22: Brighton
