Sam Drysdale
State House News Service

Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven is making a run for Senate, setting up a competition with a House colleague to represent Somerville, Medford, Cambridge and Winchester next year.

The Somerville Democrat, a self-proclaimed "unabashed progressive voice," announced at the Medford / Tufts T stop Monday morning that she will run for the Senate seat being vacated by the retirement of Sen. Pat Jehlen, who has represented the dense swath of communities north of Boston in the Senate for the last two decades. 

Uyterhoeven will run in a Democratic primary against Rep. Christine Barber, who announced her campaign for the seat in January, as well as Cambridge Vice Mayor Burhan Azeem, Somerville City Councilor Matt McLaughlin, Winchester School Committee member Tom Hopcroft and Neheet Trivedi of Cambridge. Both Uyterhoeven and Barber are Democrats who hail from Somerville. Uyterhoeven has been in the House for three terms, and Barber for six. 

“We have delivered big wins by bringing our communities together. Doubling funding for local affordable housing by millions of dollars a year, taxing millionaires to fix the MBTA and fund our public schools,” Uyterhoeven said in a statement. “Now we’re going to open every door on Beacon Hill and build a Massachusetts where everyone truly belongs.”

Uyterhoeven has a record of occasionally opposing Democrats in power. 

Last week, she was one of two Democrats who broke from the party to vote with Republicans against an energy affordability bill. While Republicans voted against the bill for not going far enough to save ratepayers money, she argued from the floor that the bill would make devastating cuts to a key climate and energy affordability program, Mass Save. 

Uyterhoeven has also backed transparency measures that are not popular in the Legislature, and has openly criticized Gov. Maura Healey for the bidding process under which she entered the state into a three-year contract with OpenAI.

“I have been inspired by Senator Jehlen’s courage to fight for our values. For 20 years, she has been the progressive heart of the Massachusetts Senate, the voice that said what needed to be said, fought the fights no one else would take, and won,” Uyterhoeven said. “That seat needs a leader who carries that same fire. That’s the kind of senator I will be.”

Jehlen, 82, announced in December that she would not seek reelection to the 2nd Middlesex District seat this year. She served in the House from 1991 to 2005 before winning a special election for her Senate seat.

McLaughlin, who was Jehlen's campaign manager in 2016, announced in January that he would run for the Senate seat with the endorsements of Somerville Mayor Jake Wilson and former Mayor Joe Curtatone. Azeem confirmed his bid last month. He's a co-founder of the statewide pro-housing group Abundant Housing Massachusetts, which is backing a ballot initiative this year to boost the construction of starter homes by allowing for larger lots to be split into smaller lots for residential use as of right.