SALEM — The race between state Sen. Joan Lovely, D-Salem, and challenger Damian Anketell, R-Peabody, will come to a head Tuesday as residents in Danvers, Peabody, Beverly and Salem cast their votes in the 2nd Essex District.
This is a rematch between Lovely, 66, and Anketell, 52, who lost to Lovely in 2022 by more than a 2-1 margin. No Republican has won the district since 1956.
Lovely first won the seat in 2012 and has risen to the leadership ranks in the Senate, where she is assistant majority leader and Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Rules.
She also serves as Senate vice-chair of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, and is a member of the Senate Committees on Ethics, Global Warming and Climate Change, Juvenile and Emerging Adult Justice, and the Joint Committee on Agriculture. She previously served on the Salem City Council for 15 years.
Anketell, a former correctional officer who grew up in Salem, has not previously held public office, and spent more than a decade serving the Essex County Sheriff’s Department in Middleton. Anketell was also the MassCall2 grant coordinator and opiate prevention specialist in Gloucester, a developmental service worker at the Hogan Regional Center in Danvers, and the Juvenile Probation and Parole Officer at the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice. He made an unsuccessful bid for sheriff in 2010.
He also grew up in the Castle Hill neighborhood in Salem and said he was Lovely’s paperboy as a teenager. The two also attended the same law program at Salem State University, and graduated the same year.
Both candidates identified their main priority as addressing the current high cost of housing in the state. However, the ways in which Lovely and Anketell would remedy the issue from the Statehouse are diametrically opposed.
Lovely, who said the No. 1 call to her office is in relation to housing, plans to continue prioritizing outreach for state resources that can assist housing insecure tenants and landlords in finding common ground and avoiding homelessness.
“We hear from a lot of tenants who are housing insecure because rents are escalating at a very quick pace,” she told The Salem News. “But there are state resources that a lot of tenants are eligible for, and they just don’t know.
“So I want to make sure that we continue to reach out to tenants and make sure that they understand what their rights are, so we don’t find people homeless. I’m an attorney as well, and I practiced in the housing court, so I’ve come to understand that it’s a good system — as long as people know their rights.”
In August, Lovely also championed the Affordable Homes Act, authorizing the largest housing investment in the state’s history — $5.16 billion in bond authorizations and tax credits, to spur housing production in Massachusetts.
Anketell claims that Lovely’s support of state spending on issues such as immigration have only served to compound the issues of housing affordability.
“In the entire nation, the cost of living is outrageous, and I feel that it’s in direct correlation to the votes that my opponent has taken in the Statehouse,” he told The Salem News. “I think we need to do a few things there to remedy the high cost of living.
“One is to cut back on the cost of spending in the state, and what I see as the No. 1 highest budget-related issue right now is the illegal immigration that we’re funding in this state.”
Anketell emphasized the negative effect he believes government spending on illegal immigrants results in, such as reduced safety, increased emergency response times, and fewer benefits for veterans and senior citizens.
He also said he would focus on issues including “men being able to go into women’s bathrooms, boys playing in girls sports, our school systems being inundated with non-English speaking students and putting stress on the students, teachers, and administration.” He also criticized Lovely’s support of reducing qualified immunity for police officers, which he said hinders officers from doing their job.
“So there’s a whole bunch of things that I feel if I step into this role, I’ll be able to assist this community with the experience that I have,” Anketell said. “There comes a time that you have to either step up, or you don’t step up.”
Lovely’s priorities also included ensuring residents have access to food, bringing green energy such as solar, wind, and geothermal to the state, expanding resources for the intellectually disabled community, expanding veterans services, and looking at new models for senior care.
“I’m very grateful that people are getting out to vote because this is a big election,” Lovely said. “And I want to thank them for any support they’ve given me in the past. I’d be honored to continue on as their state senator.”
Michael McHugh can be contacted at mmchugh@northofboston.com or at 781-799-5202