Massachusetts — 6th District

Competing visions are playing out in the race to replace Rep. Seth Moulton in Massachusetts' 6th Congressional District.

An open primary is playing out for the first time in decades after Moulton chose to challenge Sen. Ed Markey, leaving his House seat vacant.

Six Democratic candidates are vying to fill that void.

Beth Andres-Beck is a software engineer and progressive who challenged Moulton before he announced his Senate run.

Tech and artificial intelligence are focal points of the Andres-Beck campaign.

"The people in Congress don't understand these technologies, and it makes sense, because I've worked on them for 20 years, and I still have to work to keep up with it," said Andres-Beck.

John Beccia is a financial services and business leader.

"I'm a big proponent of small business," said Beccia. "We need to help build that up. We need to get them the capital that they need, and we also need to bring in bigger businesses into the state."

Dan Koh may be a familiar name to some voters. He ran for Congress in 2018, but lost in the primary to Lori Trahan.

Koh touts his time as Chief of Staff for Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and serving in the White House under former President Joe Biden.

"I think this time calls for someone who has experience at all levels of government to be able to fight this president tooth and nail on day one," said Koh.

Mariah Lancaster is a veterinarian and has held roles in the State Department and U.S. House of Representatives.

"While there, I realized that most of the people who are making the decisions that impact the lives of every day working class Americans have never actually been impacted by the very issues they are legislating," said Lancaster.

Another familiar face is Tram Nguyen, an immigration attorney and state representative from the 18th Essex District.

"I challenged a MAGA Republican in 2018, and folks said I had no shot at this running for the first time," said Nguyen. "We were thrilled to beat him by 10 points."

Jamie Belsito is a name that may also ring a bell for some Bay Staters. She challenged Moulton in 2020 and is a former state representative from the 4th Essex District. She also held roles in Washington.

"I'm already bringing bipartisan Congressional experience to this race," said Belsito. "This isn't just something that I need some training wheels on, I have relationships down there."

Beyond those introductions, we asked the candidates to weigh in on critical issues facing the district, like addressing affordability.

"There are places where capitalism does not work well," said Andres-Beck. "We know that -- places where there's big externalities, where the person getting rich isn't the one who has to pay the cost."

"More tax credits for home buyers, child care, extended child tax credit," said Beccia.

"No more than $10 a day should people be paying for their child care bills, no more than 6% of your income should ever have to go towards utility bills," said Koh.

"We have to break up monopolies and go after the corporate raiders who are surging prices throughout our economy," said Lancaster.

"They see the same well-connected people getting access, influence and opportunities while their voices are being ignored. I want to help change that," said Nguyen.

"I think Zohran Mamdani is a phenomenal leader," said Belsito. "Public housing, rent control, universal pre-K, you name it," said Belsito"

The candidates also shared their thoughts on party direction and current Democratic leadership.

"We don't know yet what the House is going to look like," said Andres-Beck. "We know that there's probably going to be at least eight socialists, hopefully nine."

"I think people have done some good things, including [House Speaker Hakeem] Jeffries, including Seth Moulton, who currently holds the seat. But I'm a change candidate, and I think we need real change," said Beccia.

"There is a very legitimate criticisms of party leadership," said Koh. "I don't think that a protracted Democratic leadership fight is the right thing for Americans right now."

"This is a matter of being able to have representation that actually knows the lived experience of being a working person today," said Lancaster.

"To be able to work with my colleagues, even those across the aisle, to try to find common ground, to be able to find compromises without compromising my values," said Nguyen.

"We continue to see a decline in representation," said Belsito. "People are worse off now than they were six years ago."

Finally, they addressed whether impeaching President Donald Trump would be a priority for a potential Democratic House majority and if it would be a distraction from some of the other issues listed above.

"I would absolutely support impeachment," said Andres-Beck.

"I'm very frustrated with the Trump administration, and certainly, a lot of things that are happening right now are pure corruption," said Beccia.

"I think we should impeach the president," said Koh.

"I would vote to impeach, because this president is the walking definition of high crimes and misdemeanors," said Lancaster.

"We have to increase accountability," said Nguyen.

"I think we should be filing impeachment every day against this guy," said Belsito.

The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Micah Jones in the general election in November.

You can catch our extended @Issue Sit Down compilation of these candidate conversations on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. The full interviews are available right now wherever you get your podcasts, just search @Issue.