Richard Neal - Congressional Career

Congressional Career

Neal ran for the United States House of Representatives in 1988 after 18-term Democratic incumbent Edward Boland retired. Boland had alerted Neal of his impending retirement, allowing the mayor a head-start on his campaign. Neal raised $200,000 in campaign contributions and collected signatures across the district before the retirement was formally announced. As a result, no other Democrat or Republican even filed for the election. Neal defeated Communist Party candidate Louis R. Godena with over 80 percent of the vote. In 1989 he was sworn in as United States Representative from Massachusetts's 2nd congressional district, which includes Springfield and the southern and western suburbs of Worcester.

Neal has won re-election in every term since. Former Springfield mayor Theodore Dimauro, reflecting sentiments that Neal had an unfair advantage in the previous election, ran as a challenger in the 1990 Democratic primary. Dimauro's campaign was sullied by a false rumor he spread about the Bank of New England's financial situation, and Neal won the primary easily. He was unopposed in the general election, winning 68 percent of the vote. In 1992 his popularity was threatened by the House banking scandal, in which he had made dozens of unpenalized overdrafts at the House Bank. After narrowly defeating two Democratic opponents, he was challenged by Republican Anthony W. Ravosa, Jr., and Independent Thomas R. Sheehan. Neal won with 53 percent of the vote.

Since 1994, Neal has had little electoral opposition. In a Springfield Union-News poll taken in mid-October 1994, Neal was only ahead of John Briare by 6 percentage points. Neal then went on to spend nearly $500,000 against John Briare in the last 2 weeks of the election to defeat him. The 1994 general election featured a third party candidate as well, Kate Ross, who received 6% of the vote. With blanks, Neal actually received only 51% of the vote in 1994. After defeating Briare in 1994, he was then challenged by Mark Steele in 1996, respectively, and ran unopposed in 1998. In 2000 he won the Democratic primary against Joseph R. Fountain, who challenged Neal's positions as "anti-choice" and "anti-gun". Neal had been unopposed in the general election since 1996, but faced Republican opponent Tom Wesley in the 2010 United States Congressional elections, which Neal won by a margin of 57% to 43%.

Neal was a member of the House Democratic Steering Committee in the 105th Congress and is now an at-large whip for the House Democrats. Neal is a co-chair of the New England Congressional Caucus, a group aiming to advance the regional interests of New England.