How to vote for more Cambridge housing this year

Contrary to popular belief, I am not and never have been a member of A Better Cambridge. I admire their advocacy and often find myself supporting them or on the same side of an issue, but I value my political independence and the freedom it gives me to say and do what I think is right without having it reflected back onto a group.

At this point in time, however, I believe that housing is the single most important issue facing Cambridge and the next council. I believe we need more housing of every type so long as it’s dense. I believe that equity today demands it just as much as survival in the future requires it. And I believe that the most powerful tool that we can wield as a city is to elect a city council that will allow people to build the kind of housing that we need.

Bottom line up front: I’m supporting everyone on the ABC slate this election, but I suggest that you vote for Alanna, Marc, and Burhan as your top three and in any order based on how confident you are of a pro-housing turnout this election. Read on.

The Incumbents: There are eight incumbent councillors (two Ls in Cambridge, for some ye olde reason) running for nine seats. Typically, incumbents get reelected here. It wouldn’t be crazy if one or two lost their seats, but the vast majority will get reelected and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if all eight were returned. Sumbul, Denise, and Patty are likely not taking anything for granted, but they were also the top vote getters in 2019, and unless something has changed, they’ll almost certainly be returned.

Sumbul and Denise are good on housing, generally. Patty is terrible.

Of the five remaining incumbents, Quinton would be next on my list of the most secure. One wrinkle here is that he seems to have shifted his target constituency somewhat in the past two years, away from the NIMBYs and CCC and towards younger and more leftist groups. I don’t expect he’ll be at much risk, but it will be interesting to see how his performance differs this time around, if at all.

That leaves four incumbent candidates who were somewhat more vulnerable last time than the others: Jivan, Marc, Alanna, and Dennis. Three of these are pro housing and would be crucial to returning to the council. The other is Dennis, who is, by far, the biggest obstruction to progress and equity in the city. These four are likely less comfortable about their chances than the other four, though Jivan has a wide and exclusive enough base of support that he’s likely okay too.

So, what does all this mean? It means that if residents return Sumbul, Denise, Jivan, Marc, and Alanna to their seats next term, that would be a solid outcome and it would mean that we would make progress on housing.

It’s easier to protect an incumbent than to elect a challenger in Cambridge, so on my ballot, I prioritized protecting incumbents who I wanted to return and who I thought were more likely to potentially finish in 10th or 11th on a bad night than incumbents who I felt were more secure in their reelection prospects. This is called playing it safe, not swinging for a touchdown or whatever sports metaphor you’d find most helpful here.

I’m playing it safe this year. If you want to play it safe, too, give your #1 to Alanna or Marc.

But what about the challengers!

The Challengers: There are a few great pro housing challengers who would make incredible councillors (still two Ls). At least one of them will join the Council.

The challengers most likely to win, in order of likelihood, are: Paul, then Burhan, then a big shrug emoji around Nicola, Joe, and Theo.

My pro-housing favorite is Burhan. If he wins the 9th seat, then the council will launch forward toward housing progress (I’ll have more to say about the case for voting for him in a day or two). Burhan ran in 2019 and did quite well. His election thesis seems to be registering new younger voters and then getting them to the polls. It almost worked last time and it may work this time. I very much hope that it does.

Paul is a formidable challenger. He ran in 2017 and just barely missed election despite raising obscene gobs of money and being endorsed by nearly everyone. He has again raised obscene gobs of money and has been endorsed by nearly everyone, so…maybe this is his year? Paul is running as a centrist, a pragmatist, and a successor to Tim Toomey, and they have a lot of similar positions on housing. If Paul takes the one open seat and the incumbents are all returned, the council doesn’t move much on housing, which would be a fine to good result.

Joe will be great on housing issues, I believe. His candidacy is a bit less certain, however. I honestly don’t know how to rate his chances. Open to thoughts here.

Nicola is CCC-endorsed and hopeless on housing.

So how can you get the most housing for your vote? If you want to vote for the best housing council you can get, rank Burhan very high. A top three of Alanna, Marc, and Burhan would be an incredibly useful and powerful ballot for the housing cause no matter the order. If you’re feeling like this is a more defensive election, rank an incumbent first. If you’re feeling more aggressive, rank Burhan first.

But wait, there’s more: Vote for nine candidates! A Better Cambridge (Capitalized) endorsed nine candidates this year, and all nine are good in their own ways. Their nine are Alanna, Marc, Burhan, Joe, Tonia, Jivan, Denise, Sumbul and Paul. Voting for the slate communicates the importance of a pro-housing agenda to the next city council, no matter who wins. If your top candidates don’t win but you vote for the nine-candidate slate, your ballot won’t be wasted because your vote will transfer to someone who does end up winning. No matter the order, vote the entire ABC slate if housing is your number one issue.

And don’t vote for CCC candidates under any circumstances. Dennis is the most vulnerable of the terrible, no good, CCC-endorsed candidates, so if you have a chance to speak with any Dennis voters and can inform them of how truly awful he is, you would be doing a good deed for the city.