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Former Massachusetts state senator Dean Tran (R) has failed to defeat incumbent Rep. Lori Trahan (D) in the race for the state’s 3rd congressional district, the Associated Press reports.
The Vietnamese American had hoped to become the first Asian American elected to represent Massachusetts in Congress—and the first GOP candidate to win in the historically blue district in over 25 years.
Tran campaigned against federal abortion rights protections and criticized President Joe Biden’s debt forgiveness plan, arguing that it would drive inflation. He described himself as a fiscal conservative and once accused Trahan of “killing minority babies” with her support for codifying Roe v. Wade.
The race became mired in controversy when Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D)—whom voters elected Tuesday to serve as the state's next governor—re-opened a 2019 case in July charging Tran with stealing a gun from an elderly constituent.
Tran sued Healey later that month, alleging that the indictment was politically motivated. Healey, whom Trahan endorsed in May, had never prosecuted an elected state official prior to re-opening the case, according to his complaint.
During his campaign, Tran also shared his experience receiving anti-Asian hate messages, which he attributed to him being “an Asian American Republican candidate and a threat to [the] narrative in the blue state of MA.”
Tran was the first person of color to win a seat on Flitchburg’s City Council, serving from 2005 to 2017 before becoming a state senator. In the state legislature, he sponsored bills ranging from advancing offshore wind and clean energy to guaranteeing debt-free public higher education in Massachusetts.
Tran was accused in 2020 of assigning staff in the state Senate to complete tasks that would help advance his re-election campaign, breaking legislature rules and violating state law. Tran lost his re-election bid that November.
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