Daniel Darris-O’Connor, 19, will become one of the youngest lawmakers in Massachusetts history after unseating eight-term Republican Marc Lombardo in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
The Billerica Democrat led Lombardo by just 438 votes out of more than 17,000 ballots cast with more than 99% of the vote tallied as of Thursday. Darris-O’Connor will turn 20 the day before he is sworn in this coming January, meaning he will narrowly miss breaking the record set by Thomas Lussier, who was 19 when he joined the state House in 1977.
“I’ve lived here my whole life,” Darris-O’Connor said. “We have a great quality of life in Massachusetts. But if you can’t afford it, what’s really the point of it?”
The teen described his district as “very purple, especially for Massachusetts” and said he ran a campaign focused on affordability and controlling rising costs for residents. He was frequently mistaken for a campaign intern or another candidate’s son while door-knocking, he told The Boston Globe.
“Yes, I’m a younger candidate, and I’m a lot younger than most, I’d say. But I wouldn’t say I was running as the young candidate,” Darris-O’Connor told The Globe.
“I ran being focused on the issues.”
Darris-O’Connor said he was inspired to enter politics while in middle school during the COVID-19 pandemic, describing that period as “radicalizing.” Tuesday’s victory was not his first election win — he was voted to Billerica’s five-member select board in 2025, before he even finished high school.
Lombardo, 47, was first elected in 2010 and had represented the 22nd Middlesex District since Darris-O’Connor was 4 years old. Known as one of the Massachusetts legislature’s most conservative members, Lombardo unsuccessfully ran for state House minority leader in 2024.
“I remained true to who I am, never afraid to speak up,” Lombardo told The Globe in a statement. “It wasn’t always easy on my family and me but it was worth every minute.”
The race was part of a broader Democratic surge that saw formerly safe Republican seats flipped at all levels across the country. Democrats already held supermajorities in both the Massachusetts House and Senate and had matched their pre-election total of 135 state House seats won with six races still uncalled as of Thursday morning.
Republicans lost a net of three seats in the lower chamber, including districts held by retiring Minority Leader Bradley Jones and his number-two, Kim Ferguson, who both opted not to seek another term. Another GOP incumbent, David Vieira, lost his seat to 23-year-old Democrat Jack Richardson.
Darris-O’Connor takes office in January alongside a freshman class that includes multiple young Democrats who helped drive Tuesday’s blue wave.