One of the contested races in western Massachusetts is in the 4th Hampden District. One of 160 house districts, it covers most of Westfield, as well as all of Southampton in neighboring Hampshire County, and spans about 76 square miles.
The district has been somewhat of an outlier in a heavily blue state. Over the past five decades, it's been represented by 6 Republicans and just one Democrat, John Velis, who after six years in the House became a state senator in 2020.
Kelly Pease succeeded him and he is now running for a fourth two-year term. Pease, a retired army veteran who recently turned 61, says he still has a lot of fire left in him. He would like to serve at least one more term.
"I'm not one of these politicians that want to be here when I'm 70. But it gives me a lot of satisfaction when I'm able to help people — whether it's their unemployment or just getting a renewal of a drivers license or their gun permit or something that just gets hung up in the bureaucratic wasteland down here in Boston," he said.
His opponent in November is Democrat Colby Hoffman, who says outside of high school, he's making his first run for elected office. Born and raised just over the state line in Enfield, Connecticut, Hoffman is a relatively recent resident to the district thanks to a first time home buyers program that allowed him and his wife to purchase an affordable home in Westfield.
"I have been witnessing just like many Americans the rise of Trump's second term and the chaos and the attacks on states like Massachusetts. And I felt I had to step up and give people an alternative to a Republican representative in a swing district," he said.
Hoffman, who is 38, says his work as a customer service specialist at the local Big Y supermarket gives him a unique insight into the pressures facing ordinary working people today. He says another reason he decided to run was Pease's early support for a proposed large scale data center in Westfield, which he opposes.
"We've had drought issues, we've had issues with our water with pfas contamination. We have affordable municipal gas and electric through Westfield Gas & Electric. I want to protect that," Hoffman said. "And I was very annoyed that our representative worked toward passing a sales tax exemption for data centers, which then allowed this data center project to possibly come into the community."
Pease says he submitted the exemption legislation at the behest of Westfield city officials pursuing an potential economic development project that had bipartisan support. He adds that was long before any environmental issues associated with such facilities became more well known.
"After we learned about the concerns, I proposed an amendment this year in our budget that would pause the construction of data centers for one year to take a look at it to see what we need to do at the state level to manage how data centers are going in and make sure they're not hurting communities," he said.
While the budget amendment ultimately failed, Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order last month regulating large-scale data center development across the state and developers have dropped plans for the proposed facility in Westfield.
One issue both Pease and Hoffman agree on is re-evaluating the current funding formula for aid to cities and towns, which they say disproportionately impacts small rural and suburban districts.
"Well I look at Westfield, I think in the...mid 2000's, they got like over 30% of their budget was from the state funding. And now it's less than 20.," Hoffman said. " So, you combine that with the increased costs and healthcare and energy, and these local towns and cities just can't do it. Between the goods it costs just to repair roads, or just to heat schools and pay for just even a minimum salary increase to their employees to try to keep up with inflation. They...are not able to."
There is one other Republican vying for re-election in western Massachusetts. Nicholas Boldyga, of Southwick, will face off against Democratic candidate Thomas Hendrickson, of Agawam and Independent Jason Perron, of Southwick for the 3 Hampden district representative seat.
