Around New England

Dan Koh Says No To 2020 Congressional Bid in Lowell-Centered District

May 13, 2020

This won’t be the year that Dan Koh runs for Congress again.

The Andover selectman and former aide to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh ran a competitive race in the Democratic primary against Lori Trahan (D-Westford) in Massachusetts’s Third Congressional District back in 2018, but is not running in 2020.

Trahan won the multi-candidate race and also won the general election. She is currently a U.S. representative.

Koh was eying another go, but decided against it.

“I think that, we as Democrats, need to focus on making sure that we don’t have four more years of Donald Trump,” he told the Lawrence Eagle Tribune. “So, I think it’s important that we all, not just Democrats, but all of us as voters, get involved in this election, calling friends, knocking on doors if we are allowed to, and doing anything else to get as many people to the polls as possible.”

In 2018, 10 people ran in the third district primary and Koh narrowly lost to Trahan. In the primary, there was not a broad swath of support behind any one candidate. Trahan won the primary with 21.7 percent of the vote — slightly better than Koh’s 21.5 percent.

Running in a solidly Democratic district, Trahan won the general election by a large margin. She got 62 percent of the vote, beating Republican businessman Rick Green, who got 33.5 percent.

The seat was open last time around, because the incumbent, Niki Tsongas, a Democrat from Lowell, did not run again.