BOSTON — Quentin Palfrey, a Weston Democrat who worked in the Obama White House and for former Attorney General Martha Coakley, will run for lieutenant governor, he announced Thursday.
Palfrey, 43, was senior adviser in the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy and led the health care division of the attorney general’s office. He grew up in Southborough and graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School.
The first-time candidate cast himself as part of the resistance to President Donald Trump.
“We are living through an unprecedented assault on our inclusive American values,” Palfrey said in a statement. “We need a governor and a lieutenant governor who will be leaders in the resistance to Trump. It’s time to stand up and fight back for the American dream.”
He said the state needs leaders “who will fight for good jobs and fair pay and will put reducing inequality and poverty at the center stage this year.”
Palfrey said he worked on a patent reform law in the White House and was deputy general counsel for strategic initiatives at the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Former Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman Phil Johnston, a registered lobbyist, and former Environmental Affairs Secretary John DeVillars, who both served under former Gov. Michael Dukakis, are co-chairmen of Palfrey’s campaign.
Cambridge attorney Andrea Kramer, who led the civil rights division in the attorney general’s office, is the campaign treasurer.
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker is expected to seek re-election next year and three Democrats are running for governor: former Secretary of Administration and Finance Jay Gonzalez, Newton Mayor Setti Warren and environmentalist Robert Massie.
While an independent statewide office, lieutenant governor candidates over the years have run as part of tickets with major party candidates and while in office, have often taken on ceremonial and advisory roles to governors.
The job can be a stepping stone, usually suddenly, to bigger things. Paul Cellucci served as lieutenant governor with Gov. William Weld before ascending to acting governor when Weld left office to pursue an ambassadorship, and then winning the Corner Office on his own in 1998.
Jane Swift, who served as Cellucci’s lieutenant governor, became acting governor when Cellucci left office to become U.S. ambassador to Canada.
Palfrey will step down as executive director of J-PAL North America, or the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he said in his announcement.
