AMHERST — Solomon Goldstein-Rose defeated five other candidates in the 3rd Hampshire District Democratic primary on Sept. 8, winning the contest to succeed retiring state Rep. Ellen Story.
Goldstein-Rose, 22, a recent Brown University graduate who served on the Amherst School Committee as a high school senior, outpaced Eric Nakajima, Sarah la Cour, Vira Douangmany Cage, Bonnie MacCracken and Lawrence O’Brien.
“I’m very excited,” said Goldstein-Rose, celebrating on primary night at Paradise of India restaurant with family and supporters, including parents Andra Rose and Joshua Goldstein and former U.S. Rep. John Olver. “I’m determined to solve climate change and improve our education system.”
With no Republican or independent running in the general election Nov. 8, Goldstein-Rose is expected to be sworn in to the seat Story has held for 24 years in January.
Goldstein-Rose said he plans to begin meeting immediately with legislators, including Story.
He was emphatic that winning this legislative race is not his dream come true.
“My dream come true is ending climate change,” Goldstein-Rose said.
With 1,779 votes, Goldstein-Rose won eight of 10 precincts in Amherst as well as Pelham and Precinct 1 of Granby, and collected more than one-third of the vote in the district.
Turnout was 22 percent across the district, with 5,473 of 24,915 voters casting ballots.
Nakajima finished second with 1,202 votes, and la Cour placed third with 968 votes.
Story, who didn’t make an endorsement, came to the Main Street restaurant to commend Goldstein-Rose. She also complimented the other candidates for running a high-level, positive campaign.
“They are all smart, they’re all progressive and Solomon has a fascinating new path in front of him,” Story said.
Nakajima, the former Massachusetts Broadband Institute executive director, congratulated Goldstein-Rose and thanked those who supported him, including ones who came to his gathering at High Horse brewery on North Pleasant Street.
“I feel like we ran a really strong campaign,” Nakajima said.
The months on the campaign trail, Nakajima said, have given him a new appreciation of Amherst’s values, and while he isn’t sure what’s next, he is committed to public policy and serving his hometown.
“I think I’ll land on my feet, but I’ll take a couple of days to relax,” Nakajima said.
La Cour, the executive director of the Amherst Business Improvement District, was first to call Goldstein-Rose with her congratulations.
“I look forward to working with Solomon and to helping him,” la Cour said from Rafter’s Sports Bar and Restaurant, where her supporters and campaign staff were on hand.
Endorsed by Rep. John Scibak, D-South Hadley, Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan and retiring Hampshire County Sheriff Robert Garvey, la Cour said she is proud of the race she ran. “I love running the BID and look forward to going back to the BID and help the community in the way I have been,” la Cour said.
O’Brien was at his North Amherst home where he was celebrating the 23rd birthdays of his twin daughters.
“Congratulations to Solomon and thank you for everyone who ran in the race, it was enlightening and it was an excellent experience,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien said he will put his energy into teaching — he is a social studies teacher at Belchertown High School — and the Massachusetts Teachers Association campaign to vote down Question 2, which would lift the statewide cap on charter schools.
MacCracken, a property title examiner, said in an email that she planned now to work on getting Hillary Clinton elected president.
Amherst School Committee member Douangmany Cage said in an email that she thought Goldstein-Rose and Nakajima “clearly showed they were committed to winning for a very long time and in the end, Solomon’s investment in his campaign paid off in a win.”
“Everyone should be thrilled climate change and education will be represented well on Beacon Hill,” she wrote.
A self-described millennial, Goldstein-Rose said a lot of people may have thought he was too young to win. “But we proved them wrong, and I’m very excited,” he said.
The youngest person elected to the state Legislature was 19-year-old Thomas Lussier in 1977.
Goldstein-Rose raised easily the most money of all the candidates, $24,990, and spent almost all of it.
He said volunteers made an “amazing effort” that including knocking on 4,500 unique doors and contacting more than 10,000 voters over the past several months.
Even in the last hour of the campaign, he and campaign volunteers observed a Pokemon Go event drawing hundreds of high school and college age people to the streets of downtown Amherst, and tried to find any who might be able to cast votes for him.
He chose the restaurant for his celebration, he said, because it is a favorite of his family and was one of the first to endorse his campaign by displaying his signs.
Goldstein-Rose wrote the precinct-by-precinct results in Amherst and the tallies from Pelham and the Granby precinct onto a whiteboard, and when it became evident he would win, people crowded around him. As he wrote his final tally 362 votes from Precinct 8 in Amherst, loud cheers erupted and a supporter played Queen’s “We Are the Champions” from a cellphone.
Goldstein-Rose congratulated the other five candidates for running a positive campaign and said he appreciated getting good ideas from them that he hopes to incorporate into future legislation.
Earlier, at the polls, Amherst resident Judith Fish was among those voting for Goldstein-Rose.
“That’s a very hot race,” Alan Root of Amherst said.
Root knows all six candidates personally.
“They’re all qualified to serve, but I’m not telling which I voted for,” he said. “I’d have problems with the other five, if I did,” he said with a laugh.
Root feels as though across the state, those elected stay in office for too long. He’d like two-year terms with a six-year maximum.
Otherwise, he said, “people get stale.” He said a change reflecting that opinion would move further in the direction of being “a government of the people.”
Scott Metrzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com. Staff writer Sarah Crosby contributed to this report.