Daniel Darris-O’Connor, a 19-year-old Billerica Democrat, unseated Representative Marc Lombardo in the 22nd Middlesex District on Tuesday, ending the Republican’s long hold on the seat. Darris-O’Connor will replace Lombardo in the Massachusetts House and will be sworn in at the State House in January.
The win makes Darris-O’Connor one of the youngest members of the House and puts him on track to be the youngest person serving there. He will turn 20 a day before taking the oath, a small detail that underscores how unusual the race was and why his age became part of the story as soon as voters started talking about it.
Lombardo had represented the district for 16 years, since Darris-O’Connor was 4 years old. That gap mattered politically as well as symbolically: the seat changed hands in Tuesday’s midterm elections, when Democrats made gains across Massachusetts and the state GOP lost more ground. Darris-O’Connor’s victory also followed his win on Billerica’s select board last year, when he was 18.
But age was not the way he wanted the race defined. Darris-O’Connor said he was younger than most candidates, but not running as the young candidate. Some voters mistook him for an intern or even for someone’s son, a problem that could have turned the campaign into a novelty act. Instead, he said he focused on the issues and let the result speak for itself.
The size of the result is still part of the story. Darris-O’Connor is among the youngest representatives-elect in Massachusetts history, and only Thomas Lussier was younger when he took office in 1977, at 19. The change also came as the state GOP’s 25-member caucus is set to shrink by three seats, according to party leadership, with Democrats also taking open seats held by retiring Minority Leader Bradley Jones and Kim Ferguson. For Lombardo, who had been one of the Legislature’s most conservative members since taking office amid the Tea Party surge in 2010, the loss closes a 16-year run in the House. On Wednesday, he said he was proud of the way he did the job and remained true to who he was. For Darris-O’Connor, the next step is simple and immediate: January, the State House, and a place in the chamber he is about to join before he has even turned 20.
