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Aug 07, 2023

As councillor, Walsh would aim to leverage technology, relationships

District 3 candidate Ann Walsh, center, on the campaign trail with her daughter Clare, right, and campaign chair Virginia Benzan. Seth Daniel photo District 3 City Council candidate Ann M. Walsh often

District 3 candidate Ann Walsh, center, on the campaign trail with her daughter Clare, right, and campaign chair Virginia Benzan. Seth Daniel photo

District 3 City Council candidate Ann M. Walsh often mixes up her campaign clipboard with her coach’s whistle in her daily, full-on dive into a campaign marked by a heavy dose of door-knocking, a busy schedule of lawn parties, and the shoe-horning of softball duties in between.

The longtime activist, former City Council staffer with John Connolly, and neighborhood softball coach, got into the race late, due to the redistricting process that initially located her Lower Mills home in District 4 before it was returned to District 3 at the end of May. Her mother also passed away this summer. The delay has led her to a quick ramp-up to faster and smarter work than all the other campaigns to catch up, she said.

“We’re trying to target folks that are frequent voters to get through the preliminary and then we’ll look at expanding the voting universe, but I only got in on June 1,” she said. “So, I’m months behind.”

Walsh is leveraging her network of friends, acquaintances, and neighbors to close the time gap. For example, she said, she needed campaign logos for lawn signs and literature on the double and had a longtime friend come up with her light blue and yellow logo on the fly.

The same is true for her social media efforts. Every night she and her 17-year-old daughter Clare sit down at the kitchen table and plan posts, while her husband Jonathan and older daughter Maddy join in on strategy ideas.

“Clare has been campaigning with me forever,” said Walsh. “She was in the car in 2006 driving people to the polls for Deval Patrick. She was an infant.”

In between door-knocking recently on homes by Wainwright Park, she texted a campaign worker who was late due to the Red Line. “One thing we’re calling for is a transit system that works,” she said between texts. “People come from work downtown and the breakdowns make them consistently late – even for campaign events and softball games.”

The campaign works cohesively by using the “Minivan” app, which is becoming common, to integrate voter lists and guide volunteers by phone as they canvass, take notes, and report on issues and interactions. A key observation from those efforts, she said, was the fact that “doorbells are becoming an endangered species. It’s wild.”

During the canvass, during which she was accompanied by the Reporter, Walsh found several voters who expressed a wide range of concerns in 10-to-20-minute conversations. One woman was struggling to find a home to buy, and her young adult sons, who are Black, reported negative experiences with the police. Another interaction over a yard fence was about crosswalks and street calming. Yet another discussion involved an older resident who wanted information without having to go online. Finally, a couple talked at length with Walsh about voting accessibility for disabled residents.

The campaign had knocked more than 2,000 doors in the district by Aug. 8, said Walsh. “I’ve campaigned for a lot of people, but never for myself,” she said. “When people get a candidate at the door, they are more interested in talking. I learned a lot more on the doors as a candidate than as a volunteer.”

From there it was off to a lawn party sponsored by a group representing Ashmont-Adams and Savin Hill. On most nights, there’s also a softball game to coach. But for Walsh, the key she’s taking from it all is value in trying to bring those she meets and knows closer to their government.“My approach will be to get the people who are end users in a room and find out if we need to fix problems so we’re not fixing problems that don’t need to be fixed, or that we’re not fixing the right things,” she said.