In a Proxy Fight for the Party’s Future, a New Face Presses Her Democratic Opponent

BOSTON — In one of the last Democratic congressional primaries where a woman of color is hoping to unseat a white male incumbent, the challenger used their final debate on Wednesday to aggressively question her opponent’s commitment to party principles.

Ayanna Pressley, a Boston city councilor, is facing off against Rep. Michael E. Capuano in Massachusetts' 7th Congressional District, challenging the 10-term congressman in what some see as a proxy fight for the future of the party.

In a half-hour back-and-forth on WGBH-TV’s “Greater Boston," with no studio audience to distract them, Pressley questioned Capuano’s commitment to abortion rights, stopping President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall and pushing for gun control. The two also disagreed over whether NFL players should take a knee during the national anthem.

Capuano batted away most of his opponent’s attacks, repeatedly noting that he had voted the same way as many other Democrats.

Their third and final debate drew sharper distinctions between the candidates than the first two, which had highlighted their similarly progressive stances. Some Democrats who want a new direction for their party hope that Pressley can mirror the success of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive newcomer who defeated another long-term party incumbent in New York.

But with their primary less than three weeks away, recent polling has shown Pressley lagging behind Capuano in their highly diverse district — the only one in the state where people of color outnumber white people. It includes parts of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville and other nearby towns.

Pressley raised the question of abortion rights, saying that in 2009, during debates over the Affordable Care Act, Capuano voted for a controversial measure that would have barred federal funding for any health plan that covered abortion services. She mistakenly referred to it as the Hyde Amendment, which somewhat muddled the discussion; the 2009 vote had been on the Stupak Amendment.

Capuano countered that he had never supported the Hyde Amendment and that he voted for the larger health care bill, as did “every single Democratic woman,” including such abortion-rights advocates as Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the House.

He also noted that if he had voted the wrong way, he would not have received perfect ratings from such abortion-rights groups as Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America.

After the debate, his staff produced documentation that Capuano had voted against both the Stupak Amendment and the Hyde Amendment. At the same time, Pressley’s staff documented that Capuano had later supported the landmark health care bill even though it included the Stupak Amendment. In Wednesday’s debate, the issue seemed to be a wash.

Pressley also said Capuano had supported immigration legislation that included some funding for Trump’s proposed border wall. But Capuano said the measure she referred to was part of a larger bill that provided some protections for unauthorized immigrants and that progressives — such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — had also supported it.

Pressley also sought to cast her opponent as weak on gun control, saying that after the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007, which left 32 dead, Capuano “said he wouldn’t push for gun control” in the House because “we know we’re going to lose.” After the debate, her staff cited a Boston Globe article from 2007 in which Capuano was quoted as saying that fighting for gun control is “just not worth it” because some members would lose re-election.

“I don’t remember what I said 10 years ago,” Capuano replied testily during the debate.

The debate featured several race-related questions, given the district’s diversity.

Asked whether NFL players were right to take a knee during the national anthem in protest of police violence and racial inequality, Capuano said he approved of their right to protest, but he did not support the tactic because it had been divisive. Pressley said she approved of both the cause and the tactic.

“It’s important that we are disruptive,” she said.

That led Pressley into a heated exchange over their differing views of so-called Blue Lives Matter legislation, which extends penalties for crimes against law enforcement officers and was perceived as a countermeasure to the Black Lives Matter movement. House Democrats, including Capuano, supported the legislation overwhelmingly.

Capuano said Wednesday that he would stand by his vote because it was wrong for people to intentionally target police officers. Pressley said it was wrong to target black men.

Pressley struggled to respond when the debate moderator, the newsman Jim Braude, pressed her on whether Trump had committed impeachable offenses. She mentioned the president’s “draconian and racist and bigoted and cruel and shortsighted policymaking” and said he had been “playing footsie” with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, which she called treasonous.

Capuano refrained from taking the same sort of aggressive stance against Pressley, but at one point he seemed somewhat exasperated.

“The biggest problem we have are the internal fights within the Democratic Party,” he said, “like calling each other names.”