Copyright MassLive
Leaning into her victories for consumers, students, and families and her ongoing battles with the Trump administration, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell announced Tuesday that she’d seek a second term in 2026, promising more of the same. “Our work is far from done,” Campbell, a Democrat, said during a news conference outside her childhood home in Boston’s South End that sits next door to a former stop on the Underground Railroad. "Too many families are still struggling to live paycheck to paycheck. The federal government is actively trying to take away our fundamental rights and freedoms,“ she continued, ”And most importantly, the next generation is struggling to do better than the last. This is why I’m running for reelection —because Massachusetts deserves an attorney general who leads with empathy, compassion, and a sense of urgency and a deep belief that this job is about more than enforcing the law. It is about making life better for people who far too often feel left out and left behind," she concluded. Campbell prefaced her brief early morning appearance on a chilly October morning with a video detailing her family history, which includes her mother’s death in a car accident, her father’s time in custody, her twin brother’s death in prison, and a youth spent in foster care. “Despite these tragedies, I found strength in community,” Campbell said in the video. During Tuesday’s news conference, she revisited that history and how it had shaped her. “It means a lot to me to be making this announcement right here in the South End and in Roxbury, steps from where I grew up,” she said. Campbell and her fellow Democratic attorneys general in other states have blitzed the Republican White House with litigation, scoring wins at the district court and appellate levels that have halted President Donald Trump’s agenda and returned more than $3 billion in federal funding to the Bay State alone. That tally included $170 million for public health efforts and the National Institutes of Health, plus $210 million for the state’s public schools. Campbell also ran the numbers on the other money she’d won back for the taxpayers, workers, kids and others. That included $32 million in recovered wages and benefits; $400 million by stopping "unfair utility rates," she said. Campbell said Tuesday that she sees no immediate end to that work in 2026 and beyond. "I expect and anticipate the federal government will actively keep trying to take the billions of dollars of Massachusetts investments away, undermine or attempt to rewrite our Constitution, take away our freedoms and our values," she continued, “And so we will just have to keep stepping up.” Campbell, a former member of Boston City Council and onetime mayoral candidate, won election to her first term in 2022, becoming the first Black woman to win statewide. The high-profile fights with the White House, along with a move from Mattapan to the South Coast, have fueled speculation about her political future, the political newsletter MASSterList noted Tuesday. But even though the initials for Campbell’s title, “AG,” are often jokingly referred to as shorthand for “aspiring governor,” Campbell insisted Tuesday that she’s focused on four more years at Ashburton Square. “I love my job as attorney general, and I, of course, want to keep it,” she said. “And I recognize we’ve accomplished great work, especially in the area of affordability and federal accountability.”
