IAN CAIN is set to make history in January as the gay, Black president of the Quincy city council, but he’d just as soon not talk about it.

The first Black person and openly gay person to serve in elected office in Quincy, Cain scoffs at the identity politics of the left, and appears to fit more comfortably in the mold of a Charlie Baker Republican as he talks up the nuts and bolts of getting things done and avoiding the pitched battles of the political extremes. 

“We’ve seen such polarization over the last six, seven years that people are looking for a semblance of balance and pragmatism,” said Cain, who cruised unopposed to reelection last month.

That outlook makes him a pretty good fit to helm the council in Quincy, a city of moderate leanings where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 4-to-1 but a place Baker nonetheless carried twice. Local political observers say the 41-year-old has the votes from council colleagues to win the president’s post, which will give higher visibility to a rising figure who is seen as a potential mayoral contender if 16-year incumbent Tom Koch gives up the seat four years from now. 

Though the progressive label can mean different things to different people, Cain sees it as “mostly a platform based on identity, and identity for the sake of identity as if it’s the only progress needed to be made.” 

“I want to get stuff done for the sake of people so they can realize some benefits of their government. So I’m much more about pragmatism,” he said. “I try to take the moderate approach. I’m not interested in identity politics. There are important social issues that can’t be avoided but I certainly would rather focus on how we can expand the pie for everyone as opposed to focusing on particular groups.”

Like most Massachusetts voters, he’s not enrolled in a political party. He briefly joined the Democrats years ago for a “cup of coffee,” as he puts it, before unenrolling. “If you’re to ask me where I’m going in terms of political party and if I have to choose a political party, I would probably end up finding opportunity to grow a place in the Republican Party in Massachusetts,” he said.

When pressed about Donald Trump’s hold on Republicans and the party’s stance on social issues, Cain says he is more interested in its pro-business stance and points to the succession of moderate Republican governors like Baker and Paul Cellucci who Massachusetts voters have sent to the State House. 

Cain grew up in a biracial and bipartisan household, firmly in the middle class. Cain recalled when he was seven years old, he wore a George H. W. Bush bumper sticker on his jacket while walking into Wollaston Elementary School, which doubles as a Quincy polling location on election days.

His mother Kathleen, an Irish American Republican, took care of Ian and his two siblings. His father John, a Democrat, worked as a headhunter in the 1970s and 1980s before going to work in human resources at a computer contracting company.

“We recognized our differences within the community. My father was probably the only Black person that we could ever point to but we looked at racial aspects, or our diversity, with levity and with humor,” Cain said. “We never considered ourselves different. Quincy was our home.”

In the 1990s, Cain’s father owned a computer reselling business in Quincy before becoming the first Black person to run for anything in Quincy in 1999, waging a losing campaign for city council. Several other unsuccessful campaigns followed.

When Ian Cain made his own run for the Ward 3 city council seat in 2015, his father was battling lymphoma, but he was out there knocking on doors for his son. His father now works as director of community technology integration inside City Hall.

“I’d been two years back in Quincy after business school, and I had always wanted to run for something,” Ian Cain said, recalling his ambition as a 7-year-old to run for president. “I knew what I had to do, which was knock on thousands of doors, get to know people, create a message,” Cain said. “It was a marketing campaign. It was a blast.”

Cain was part of an incoming class of new councilors that included one who is Chinese and another who is Thai. With their addition, the Patriot Ledger noted at the time, the nine-member body made history and “will better resemble the diverse city it represents.” The most recent census data show Quincy’s increasingly multicultural population of 101,000 is 30 percent Asian and 6 percent Black or African American.

Cain is now approaching a decade on the City Council. His current focus, aside from connecting constituents to city departments, involves working to establish citywide municipal broadband, essentially making internet access a public utility, which is a top request from residents.

Outside of his council work, four years ago Cain co-founded QUBIC Labs, a nonprofit incubator of technology startups, with support from commercial real estate firm FoxRock Properties. “Having had a couple of years in municipal government and seeing the economic development, mostly through the lens of residential [needs], I wanted to see more commercial activity, I wanted to see Quincy participate in that innovation economy that exists elsewhere,” said Cain, who serves as board chairman.

Tim Cahill, the president of the city’s chamber of commerce, said Cain connects with the older generation as well as the surge of newcomers in recent years who have made a home in Quincy.

Cahill, who previously served as a Quincy city councilor before going on to win statewide office as treasurer, said local government is the ultimate test of a politician’s mettle. “You learn how to get things done. If you can’t get it done at the local level, you can’t get it done anywhere,” Cahill said. “Sometimes it means pushing back, sometimes it means working with other people. He’s really bridged that gap.”

The council president’s post has its limits, as Quincy has a strong-mayor setup similar to Boston, but Cain will be able to help set the council agenda and control committee appointments. Cain said he’s interested in the role because it’s a chance to work more closely with Koch, who starts another four-year term as mayor in January. 

Over the last 16 years under Koch, Quincy has undergone a development boom. The city, which has seen its Asian and Black population steadily grow, also experienced an influx of young professionals who moved into the new apartment towers downtown and in other parts of the city.

As for Cain’s future political ambitions, in September, a text message poll that hit the phones of voters of the Eighth Congressional District initially seemed to offer a potential clue. The district is represented by Stephen Lynch, a moderate Boston Democrat. He has held the seat since 2001, and after redistricting cycles that shifted its borders, it includes South Boston, Dorchester, Quincy, and Brockton. 

The poll pitted Lynch against Cain, who interned for him when Lynch was in the state Senate and in Congress. Both a Lynch spokesman and Cain denied they were behind the poll, which hasn’t been publicly released.

Cain added that he is more interested in an executive-type role in politics, something that would seem to line up better with a future mayoral run.

“I’m never going to say I’m not interested in a role,” Cain said. “It’s where can I be most effective for people that I want to represent.”