IAN CAIN, the Quincy City Council president and a newly registered Republican, formed a campaign committee to take on US Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Cain’s steps towards a statewide run against the Democratic Party heavyweight come as Warren gears up to seek reelection to a third six-year term.
Cain, 41, is the first gay, Black leader of the nine-member City Council. He’s served on the council since 2016.
Back in December, as he prepared to take the reins as council president, Cain was a registered independent – but hinting at a move into the state’s Republican Party, whose leaders are attempting to rebuild the organization after years of infighting left it saddled with debt. He changed his registration to Republican in February.
On Monday, Cain said he expects to make a formal announcement later this month about his Senate run, which he called a “massive undertaking.” He’ll face a tight timeline, as US Senate candidates are required to gather 10,000 voter signatures by May 7 to get on the ballot.
The paperwork Cain filed with the Federal Election Commission is to also set up a fundraising apparatus. Cain referred to the campaign as a “high-growth startup,” a nod to his business background as the co-founder of a technology incubator, QUBIC Labs, and a proponent of crypto, a digital type of currency.
Cain has hired Virginia-based consulting firm Targeted Victory, which recently helped South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott with fundraising for his unsuccessful Republican campaign for president.
Warren, a crypto critic, is already facing a challenger who also has a background in cryptocurrency and is new to the Republican Party. John Deaton, a lawyer who has described himself as fiscally conservative and socially moderate, moved to Swansea from Rhode Island in order to run for the seat.
Cain was briefly registered as a Democrat. He has donated to Democrats, including to Kim Driscoll and Andrea Campbell when they were running for lieutenant governor and attorney general in 2022. Cain, who spent the first few years of his life in Boston’s Back Bay before his family moved to Quincy, in 2021 endorsed Michelle Wu, a councilor mentored by Warren, when she ran for mayor.
Despite the barrier-breaking mark he made in Quincy, Cain eschews the identity politics of the left. He told CommonWealth Beacon in December that he sees himself in the mold of Charlie Baker, a moderate Republican who has distanced himself from his party’s national leadership and did not support Donald Trump in either of his presidential runs.
“I’m a get-shit-done type of guy,” Cain said. “And I hate political blathering and political placating. I’m not interested in that.”
He added: “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. I try to take the moderate approach.”