Ayanna Soyini Pressley (born February 3, 1974) is an American politician who has served as the U.S. representative for Massachusetts's 7th congressional district since 2019. This district includes the northern three quarters of Boston, most of Cambridge, parts of Milton, as well as all of Chelsea, Everett, Randolph, and Somerville.
Pressley served as an at-large member of the Boston City Council from 2010 through 2019. She was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2018 after she defeated the ten-term incumbent Mike Capuano in the Democratic primary election for Massachusetts's 7th congressional district and ran unopposed in the general election. Pressley was the first black woman elected to the Boston City Council and the first black woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts. Pressley is a member of "The Squad", an informal group of progressive Congress members.
Early life and education Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Her father, Martin Terrell, struggled with addiction and was incarcerated throughout Pressley's childhood, but eventually earned multiple degrees and taught at the college level. Her mother, Sandra Pressley (née Echols), worked multiple jobs to support the family and also worked as a community organizer for the Chicago Urban League advocating for tenants' rights. The marriage ended in divorce. Pressley grew up on the north side of Chicago and attended Francis W. Parker School, where she was a cheerleader, did modeling and voice-over work, appeared in Planned Parenthood bus advertisements, and was a competitive debater. During her senior year of high school, she was voted the "most likely to be mayor of Chicago" and was the commencement speaker for her class.
Pressley's mother later moved to Brooklyn, where she worked as an executive assistant and remarried. When Pressley was elected to the Boston City Council, her mother would often attend the public meetings, wearing a hat that said "Mama Pressley".
From 1992 to 1994, Pressley attended the College of General Studies at Boston University, before leaving school to take a full-time job at the Boston Marriott Copley Place to support her mother, who had lost her job. She took further courses at Boston University Metropolitan College.
Pressley has publicly recounted having been a survivor of a "near decade of childhood sexual abuse". She has also publicly recounted surviving a sexual assault on the campus of Boston University while a student there.
Early political career After dropping out of Boston University Metropolitan College, Pressley worked as a district representative for Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II (D−MA), for whom she had interned during college. She became Kennedy's scheduler, then worked as constituency director, before becoming the political director and senior aide for Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) In 2009, Pressley served as Kerry's political director.
Boston City Council
Pressley was first elected to the Boston City Council in November 2009. Upon being sworn in on January 4, 2010, she was the first woman of color to serve in the 100-year history of the Boston City Council.
Pressley placed a strong focus on women's and children's issues.Two sources:
Pressley founded the Committee on Healthy Women, Families, and Communities, which addresses issues such as domestic violence, child abuse, and human trafficking. She worked collaboratively with community members to develop a comprehensive sex education and health curriculum which was implemented in Boston Public Schools.
In June 2014, the Boston City Council unanimously passed an ordinance Pressley coauthored with Councilor Michelle Wu, which prohibits its city government "from contracting with any health insurer that denies coverage or 'discriminates in the amount of premium, policy fees, or rates charged...because of gender identity or expression". This ordinance guaranteed healthcare (including gender reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, and mental health services) to transgender city employees and their dependents. Pressley declared, "We can't be a world-class city if anyone is made to feel like a second-class citizen."
Pressley worked on the issue of liquor licenses in the city. The ultimate product of Pressley's push was the passage of state legislation in 2014 granting Boston the authority to distribute 75 additional liquor licenses over three years, with the aim of distributing them to less advantaged neighborhoods to increase economic activity in those neighborhoods. However, The Boston Globe'''s Meghan Irons observed that an unintentional impact of this was that, "it created uneven competition. It left out certain neighborhoods. It allowed businesses that were already established to get the licenses." Nevertheless, in 2018, The New York Times called Pressley's work on the matter a "major accomplishment". To remedy the shortfalls, Pressley worked with Mayor Walsh to further expand the number of new available liquor licenses. In 2017, Pressley and Mayor Walsh unveiled a proposal to increase the number of liquor licenses in the city by 152 over three years, with the majority of licenses being granted to underserved communities.
In 2017, the Council passed the Equity in City of Boston Contracts Ordinance, which was sponsored by Pressley and Councilor Michelle Wu. It required that the city create a supplier diversity program to conduct outreach to female and minority-owned businesses in regards to the city's contracting process. It also required the city to actively solicit bids from at least one female-owned business and one minority-owned business for contracts under $50,000. It also created a quarterly reporting requirement for the city.
According to Erin O'Brien, a political science professor at University of Massachusetts Boston, Pressley did not have the reputation for being controversial or an outsider during her time on the City Council. O'Brien, in 2018, observed that the city's "old guard" viewed Pressley as a "showboat" but that, "in many communities of color, she is viewed as incredibly exciting and voicing issues the council has ignored."
In the Boston City Council election of November 2011, Pressley finished first among at-large candidates with 37,000 votes. She led in 13 of the city's 22 wards and finished second in three others. Pressley won Boston's communities of color and many progressive neighborhoods. In all, she placed first in more than half of Boston's 22 wards. Pressley placed first ticket again in November 2013 and November 2015, and placed second in November 2017 behind only Michelle Wu.
While on the Boston City Council, Pressley was one of the first notable Massachusetts politicians to endorse Elizabeth Warren's successful campaign in Massachusetts' 2012 U.S. Senate election. Pressley would later endorse Warren's 2020 presidential campaign.
U.S. House of Representatives Elections
2018
In January 2018, Pressley announced her challenge to incumbent United States Representative Michael Capuano in the 2018 Democratic primary nomination for the Massachusetts's 7th congressional district. With a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+34, the 7th is by far the most Democratic district in New England. No Republican even filed, though any Republican would have faced very long odds given the district's heavy Democratic bent. The GOP has only nominated a candidate in this district five times since longtime Speaker Tip O'Neill retired in 1986, and had last done so in 1998.
The 7th district is traditionally Democratic and is the state's only district where the majority of residents are not white. Capuano received endorsements from civil rights veteran and U.S. Representative John Lewis of Georgia as well as U.S. Representative Maxine Waters of California.
For years before she challenged him, Pressley had been speculated as a likely top contender to succeed Capuano if he were to retire.
Pressley was endorsed by the editorial boards of both The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald as well as a local chapter of the hotel and electrical worker union. Grassroots movements including Democracy for America, Brand New Congress and the Justice Democrats supported Pressley. She received the endorsements of former Massachusetts Democratic Party chair John E. Walsh, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, former Newton mayor Setti Warren and Boston city councilor Michelle Wu. The nomination win in New York's 14th congressional district of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over long-time representative Joseph Crowley increased the visibility of Pressley's campaign. While some political commentators distinguished Pressley's campaign from the one of Ocasio-Cortez as Capuano was understood to have one of the most progressive records in Congress, the incumbents both represented districts in which the majority of voters are not white.
Like Capuano, Pressley campaigned as a staunch progressive, acknowledging that her voting record would likely be similar to that of Capuano. However, she argued that simply maintaining a reliably liberal voting record was insufficient to address the changing needs of a district that had undergone significant demographic and cultural changes. She also claimed that the district needed to be represented by someone who would take a more aggressive role in opposing the presidency of Donald Trump. She campaigned with the slogan "change can't wait", and promised that she would bring "activist leadership".
In the September 4, 2018, Democratic primary election, Pressley defeated Capuano by a margin of 59% to 41%. The primary victory was a surprise, as the last poll before the election showed Capuano with a significant lead, 48% to 35%. Part of the reason the polls may have been inaccurate was a surge in the number of primary voters. According to the Boston NPR station WBUR, 24 percent of primary voters in the 7th district primary had not voted in the five previous primaries. The percentage of new voters included a disproportionate number of Hispanic and Asian voters. She won the general election unopposed.
2020
Pressley was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Rayla Campbell, a claims adjuster and occupational zoning activist from Randolph, mounted a write-in campaign as a Republican. Pressley won the general election, securing a second term.
2022
Presley ran for a third term and defeated Republican Donnie Palmer in the general election. Palmer was the first Republican to run without a write-in campaign since 1998.
2024
Pressley ran unopposed in the Democratic primary and the general election, securing a fourth term representing District 7.
Tenure
Pressley is the first black woman elected to represent Massachusetts in Congress. With the November election victory of Jahana Hayes in Connecticut's 5th congressional district, they became the first women of color to be elected to Congress from New England.
Pressley is a member of the informal group known as "The Squad", whose members form a unified front to push for progressive changes such as the Green New Deal and Medicare-for-all. The other original members of "The Squad" are Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Pressley is the oldest and most politically experienced of the four, and she was asked by the group to act as their spokesperson after then-President Donald J. Trump attacked them.
In an interview with The Boston Globe in July 2019, Pressley said her office received death threats after President Trump's tweets on July 14, 2019, and in general since her election.