Two sitting city councilors-at-large, Moises Rodrigues and Jean Bradley Derenoncourt, are advancing to potentially become Brockton’s next mayor after Tuesday’s preliminary election.
Rodrigues came in first among the eight candidates in the open race, garnering 3,090 votes, according to unofficial results reported by Brockton Community Access Television. Derenoncourt took home 2,522.
According to the Brockton Enterprise, Tuesday’s results mean the city is guaranteed to elect its first mayor of color in the Nov. 4 general election.
Current Mayor Robert Sullivan announced in March that he wouldn’t be running for reelection after five years in office and previously, 14 years on the City Council.
“I’ve said many, many times that the mayor’s position is not and should not be a lifetime job. It is time for me now to rejoin my family and to be a dad and a husband,” he said during a March 7 press conference.
Sullivan had faced a number of issues in the preceding year, including a multimillion-dollar deficit at the public school district and student behavioral issues that led some members of the School Committee to pressure him into requesting a National Guard response.
He also vetoed an ordinance that would have banned public sleeping and camping, intended to address homeless encampments.
Eight candidates entered the race, including Derenoncourt and Rodrigues. The two city councilors each won more than four times the votes of the third-place finisher, Luz Villar, who received 538 votes, unofficial tallies show.
Rodrigues previously served as interim mayor in 2019, when council colleagues appointed him to finish out the term of Mayor Bill Carpenter, who died in office.
He is a U.S. Navy veteran and Cape Verdean immigrant who also serves as executive director of the Cape Verdean Association of Brockton, according to his website.
Derenoncourt, who immigrated from Haiti after the island’s 2010 earthquake, was first elected in 2017, according to his website.
He is a correctional officer in the Norfolk County Sheriff’s Office, but previously worked in the offices of multiple Massachusetts politicians, most recently former State Auditor Suzanne Bump, he told the Enterprise.
Villar, a Democrat, has worked in politics before, in roles at Boston City Hall and the state Legislature.
Candidates Carina Mompelas, Eugenie Kavanaugh and Richard Wayne Ripley have all run for mayor before, in 2019, 2021 and 2023, respectively. Mompelas also ran as a Republican for Plymouth County treasurer in 2020, but came in last in Tuesday’s election, with just 57 votes.
Kavanaugh is a U.S. Army veteran, social worker and activist, and received 176 votes Tuesday.
Ripley got into local politics primarily to increase safety on Brockton Area Transit buses, the Enterprise reported during his first campaign. He received 80 votes in this year’s preliminary.
Republican Richard Reid is a businessman, pastor and IT professional, according to the Brockton Ward 1 Republican Committee. He finished fourth Tuesday with 366 votes.
Larry Fargo, who works in construction as a general contractor and construction supervisor, was running as an independent, he told the Enterprise. He took home 108 votes.
As the two top vote-getters in Tuesday’s preliminary election, Rodrigues and Derenoncourt will move on to the general election on Nov. 4, when voters will also elect city councilors.