Neal wins primary with reduced margin, faces Milleron rematch in November
Neal's margin shrunk to 8.2 percentage points against teacher Jeromie Whalen, down from his 17-point win over Alex Morse in 2020.
U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal won his Democratic primary on Tuesday with a narrower margin than six years earlier, defeating Northampton High School teacher Jeromie Whalen in a race that will set up a November rematch with an independent challenger.
Neal, a 19-term incumbent, secured 49,116 votes to Whalen's 41,714, an 8.2-percentage point margin. In 2020, Neal defeated Alex Morse, then mayor of Holyoke, by 17 percentage points. The congressman said Tuesday night that his victory defied national trends that have toppled other long-serving establishment Democrats in primaries this cycle.
Whalen, who spent the day after the primary back at his classroom, said he was proud of his campaign's work. "My head is held high. I'm so proud of my team," Whalen told a reporter during his lunch break Wednesday. He noted that his campaign drew younger, college-educated voters in wealthier communities, winning Easthampton, South Hadley, where he lives, and Belchertown, where he grew up.
Neal performed strongest in blue-collar cities and communities with large Black populations. He won his home base of Springfield by 30 points. Whalen flipped Holyoke, winning by 12 percentage points with 2,266 votes to Neal's 1,780—a reversal from 2020, when Neal carried Morse's hometown, 4,366 to 3,940.
Neal raised $2.1 million this cycle but spent only $930,000. Whalen raised $335,000 and spent about $105,000 in July and early August. Voter turnout was lower than in 2020.
The congressman now faces independent candidate Nadia Milleron in November. Neal defeated Milleron's independent bid in 2024. Milleron said Wednesday that she plans to spend $2 million before the general election, drawing partly on a $49.5 million wrongful death settlement her family received in May related to the 2019 Boeing 737 Max crash that killed her daughter, Samya Stumo. Stumo grew up in Sheffield and was working for a nonprofit focused on health systems in developing countries when the plane crashed minutes after takeoff from Ethiopia.
Neal, 77, declined to commit to running again in 2028, saying only that he has "more elections behind him than in front of him." Whalen did not directly answer whether he would seek the seat again, saying he is now focused on teaching and hopes his campaign volunteers stay involved in their communities beyond the election cycle.