ABINGTON – The exuberance at the home of Alyson Sullivan’s parents could hardly be contained. Shortly after 9 p.m., she and about 75 supporters received news that she had bested her opponent, former Abington selectman Alex Bezanson, in the race for the 7th Plymouth District State Representative 10,225 to 8,079. The 30-year-old will follow in the footsteps of her father, Michael, who held the same seat during the early 1990s.
“Thank you to everyone that helped with my campaign over the last two years,” Bezanson posted on Facebook, congratulating Sullivan. “Unfortunately it didn’t go our way.”
Sullivan, a young, enthusiastic paralegal and final-year law student talked quickly as she moved from guest to guest, freely giving out hugs for their support.
When asked how she would succeed as a Republican among so many Democrats on Beacon Hill, she said that she is an independent voice and does not see that as an impediment. “I’ll work with others,” she added.
She says her top priorities are Chapter 70 money for schools, Chapter 90 money for infrastructure and fighting the opioid crisis.
“I’ve had cousins who’ve lost their lives to opioids,” she said. She says she’ll partner with local law enforcement to go after drug dealers. “I want less and less people to get addicted in the first place,” she added.
Her plans are admittedly ambitious, but she says she can handle working as a legislator by day and going to law school at night.
Her campaign manager, Alex Hagerty, himself a rising star in local republican politics, sitting on the Abington Board of Health, described some of the campaign work that had “made it all happen.”
He described a grassroots effort to maintain the 7th District for Republicans that saw Geoff Diehl not seek re-election to the State House and lose his race for Massachusetts senator against incument Elizabeth Warren.
“She’ll have to fill the shoes of Diehl,” said Hagerty, who said the campaign wished Diehl the best of luck in his next endeavors and that they were disappointed in his loss
But, “Abington, Whitman and East Bridgewater could not have elected a better state representative,” he said.