The headlines framed the narrative.
“A Stunner: Ayanna Pressley Topples Michael Capuano,” wrote WBUR. “In Primary Stunner, Pressley Unseats Incumbent,” pronounced the Associated Press. The New York Times chimed in similarly. So did the Los Angeles Times and HuffPost.
The stories teased out some nuance, but all across the media landscape, an overall assessment took shape: In one of the last primaries of this midterm season, one more woman of color beat one more establishment white man at the ballot box. The articles insisted that the race had seemed like a lock for Rep. Michael Capuano, who represented (and had been popular in) his district in Massachusetts for 10 terms.
But then Ayanna Pressley swooped in! An “upset.” And a “stunner.” A vanquisher of familiar political orders! No surprise: Instantaneous comparisons were drawn to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic Socialist and political newcomer, who crushed Rep. Joe Crowley in New York in June. How else to explain Pressley’s triumph? Commentators insinuated that in the end, voters had picked her as part of a national trend that favors women and minorities, not because she ran a matchless race. Outlets leaned on terms of shock and surprise, with a tone that said, “No one could have anticipated this! Not even us.”
Except, it wasn’t like that at all.
Unlike Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley isn’t a political newcomer—not by a stretch. In 2009 she was elected to the Boston City Council and has served on it ever since. (With that first win, she became the first black woman ever in her seat.) In 2015, Emily’s List handed her their annual Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award. She’s helped lead Emerge Massachusetts, an organization that trains women to run for office. She is not 28. She’s 44, just three years younger than Barack Obama was when he was elected president of the United States.
True, Ocasio-Cortez boosted her in June, and Democratic leadership rebuffed her, reluctant as usual to back someone in a seat a Democrat already occupies. But also true? Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey endorsed her. She’s popular in the district. Her team ran a pitch-perfect race, with a motto that resonated (“Change Can’t Wait”) and an approach that was cost-effective. It worked.
Her reputation is in fact so storied that when the race was called, writer Rebecca Traister tweeted: “I know I’ve said this before, but I have never been as blown away by a politician as I was the first time I heard Ayanna Pressley speak.”
And Jamilah Lemieux, now an advisor on Cynthia Nixon’s New York gubernatorial bid and a communications consultant and critic, put an even finer point on it: “Ayanna Pressley might be our first Black woman president,” she tweeted. Lemieux didn’t write that to herald some “stunner,” a force no one saw in the distance. She tweeted that three years ago.
Earlier this summer, Glamour interviewed Pressley for our November issue. (Ahem, we were not “stunned” by this win.) In our conversation, Pressley reflected on what it was like to be the first black woman on the Boston City Council—not so much how it felt for her, but how people received her.
“It was always in the recesses of my mind that if we were successful, that I would be a first,” she said. “But it was not the motivation behind my run.” She ran because she knew she could do the work and because she had good ideas. She didn’t run to fit into someone else’s “trend piece.”
“There were so many naysayers who couched my victory solely [as motivated by] voters who wanted to make history,” Pressley said. The narrative frustrated her. “To me, [it] took away from what I had accomplished.”
Ayanna Pressley didn’t stun Boston. She’s not an upset. She ran a brilliant race, and she won. Those who missed her rise? You weren’t paying attention.
Mattie Kahn is a senior editor for Glamour.
MORE: Ayanna Pressley Reacting to Her Historic Massachusetts Primary Win Will Make Your Day
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