With the September 1 Democratic primary approaching, longtime Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan is facing a challenge from David Solet, a former prosecutor in her office who is campaigning on a message of change, public safety, and modernization.
The two candidates have meaningful connections to Newton, where Solet previously lived and raised his family and where both of his daughters graduated from Newton North High School. Solet said his familiarity with the City gives him a personal connection to the concerns of Newton voters.
Ryan, meanwhile, has significant political support in the city, including from a group of local elected officials and community leaders who recently hosted a campaign reception for her.
Experience vs. Experience
The race pits Ryan’s argument that her experience is particularly important in a turbulent political environment against Solet’s contention that his experience inside the office has shown him where the administration needs to change.
Ryan, who has led the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office since 2013, said she is running again because she believes voters need both experience and representation.
“We’re living in a time when experience has never mattered more,” Ryan said in an interview with Fig City News, pointing to her office’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, and actions by the Trump administration.
She also emphasized that she is currently the only woman among Massachusetts’ 11 district attorneys and said her experience as a survivor of gun violence gives her a perspective that she brings to discussions about public safety and the criminal justice system.
Solet said his decision to challenge Ryan came from his experience working inside the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.
“I love the Middlesex DA’s Office,” Solet told Fig City News. “I’ve dedicated my whole professional life to doing the work of that office, but I could see firsthand from the inside that there were things that were wrong, things that were not being corrected.”
Solet said he tried to address those issues internally before deciding to challenge Ryan.
“I did the best that I could to fix them from the inside,” he said, “but in the end, I decided I had to do something about it.”
Solet’s campaign describes him as a prosecutor with 24 years of experience. His biography also notes that he served as chief legal counsel to the Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety from 2015 to 2019 before returning to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.
A debate over lobbying for legislative change
Public safety has emerged as a central issue in the campaign, particularly over whether Massachusetts law gives prosecutors the tools they need to protect the public.
Solet has called for reforms to the state’s dangerousness law, arguing that prosecutors should have greater ability to seek pretrial detention hearings for people charged with certain serious offenses.
“I think that the district attorney needs not only to be willing to use the laws that we have to protect people, but also to speak out when the laws we have are not sufficient to protect people,” Solet said.
He has specifically criticized what he calls a loophole in Massachusetts’ dangerousness law that prevents prosecutors from seeking hearings for defendants charged with “crimes like cross-burning, bomb-making, armed robbery or aggravated rape of a child.”
Ryan disputed Solet’s characterization of her position. She said prosecutors need the tools necessary to protect the public, but argued that changes to the dangerousness law raise questions about how expanded authority would be used and the responsibility that would come with it.
Drug-impaired driving is another major point of disagreement.
Solet has pointed to Middlesex District prosecution data that, according to his campaign, show that 71% of Middlesex County cases between 2020 and 2024 involving operating under the influence (OUI) of drugs were dismissed, while prosecutors secured convictions in only two of 43 cases that reached trial.
He argues that the numbers demonstrate a need for changes to Massachusetts law.
“The result is exactly what many experts warned would happen,” Solet said in a campaign statement. “We are still struggling to identify drug-impaired drivers, prosecutors are losing most of the cases that are brought, and innocent people are getting hurt. We can do better.”
Ryan agreed that drug-impaired driving is a significant issue but disputed Solet’s characterization of her record.
She said that, unlike with breathalyzers for alcohol-related driving offenses, Massachusetts lacks the scientific tools to establish when someone has consumed marijuana or whether a particular level of THC corresponds to impairment.
Ryan said legislation addressing drugged driving was debated in the Legislature but failed after scientists, medical professionals, and others raised questions about whether the proposed testing technology could reliably establish impairment.
“There is definitely an issue,” Ryan said. “I would certainly support something that would address that real issue.”
She argued, however, that Solet is campaigning on a bill that failed years ago rather than presenting a new solution.
The candidates clash over leadership
Solet’s criticism extends beyond individual policies. He has argued that Ryan’s management style has contributed to the departure of talented prosecutors and that prosecutors under her leadership have not been given enough discretion.
“I think the district attorney needs to be somebody who can inspire young prosecutors and make them feel good about their work, to be proud of their work,” Solet said.
He said he would also change the way prosecutors are given responsibility over their cases.
“The ethical duty of a prosecutor is not just to win cases, but to do justice,” he said. “To do that, you need to trust that your prosecutors understand their cases and empower them to make the choices that justice requires.”
Ryan rejected that characterization, saying Solet has not presented data showing an unusual level of attrition in the office.
She also pointed to the relatively low salaries traditionally paid to assistant district attorneys as a factor that can lead prosecutors to leave public service. Ryan said that when she became district attorney in 2013, new prosecutors were earning $38,000 while carrying an average of approximately $160,000 in student debt. She said new prosecutors joining the office in September will earn $72,500.
Ryan also noted that Solet himself left the office and later returned.
“I asked my opponent to come back after I created the Cold Case Unit,” Ryan said. “He was a valued member of our office and a strong, independent contributor.”
Solet said his departure was ultimately driven by concerns about the direction of the office and his belief that some issues were not being addressed.
A cold-case dispute
The candidates also offered sharply different accounts of a 1988 sexual assault investigation that became a significant factor in Solet’s decision to leave the office.
Solet said he used forensic genetic genealogy to identify a suspect in the decades-old rape, but could not prosecute because Massachusetts’ 15-year statute of limitations for adult rape cases had expired. He said he urged Ryan to use the case to advocate for changing the law and that she initially declined.
“I went to the incumbent district attorney and said, ‘The bad news is I can’t prosecute this man,'” Solet said. “But the good news is, we now have the perfect case to bring to the Legislature and tell them this law needs to change.”
Solet said he ultimately resigned from the office in September 2024 and later launched his campaign for district attorney. He has argued that Ryan began publicly advocating for a change in the statute only after he announced his candidacy.
Ryan gave a different account.
She said changing Massachusetts’ statute of limitations for rape cases involving DNA evidence had been debated for years, pointing to legislation filed by State Sen. Mark Montigny in 2015. She also said similar proposals had been considered repeatedly since 2011. Independent reporting by ProPublica documents efforts to change the statute of limitations for rape cases involving DNA evidence dating back to 2011.
Ryan said she ultimately worked with the victim in the 1988 case, who agreed to speak anonymously to Boston 25 News in December 2025. The victim said she personally would not want to reopen the case but believed other survivors should have the choice.
Ryan said the victim’s willingness to speak publicly was central to the subsequent push for legislative change.
“The hero in this story is neither Dave Solet nor I,” Ryan said. “The hero is really that woman who came forward and, at personal cost to herself, said, ‘I understand, and I would like to help somebody else.'”
The law has since changed, with Massachusetts adopting a DNA-related exception to the statute of limitations for certain sexual assault cases.
Citing the previous efforts to change the statute of limitations in cases involving DNA evidence, Ryan disputed Solet’s statement.
“A desperate claim that you were the holder of the idea and I blocked the effort is just not true,” Ryan said.
Differing views of police-union endorsements
Solet has received endorsements from the Newton Police Association and Newton Police Superior Officers Association. The unions cited his positions on drug-impaired driving, cybercrime, and closing what they described as gaps in Massachusetts’ dangerousness law.
Ryan has taken a different approach to police endorsements. She said that after the 2020 racial justice reckoning following George Floyd’s murder, she signed the Justice Collaborative Pledge not to seek or accept endorsements or campaign contributions from police unions.
Ryan said the decision was intended to ensure that victims and members of the public would not question whether police endorsements could influence her decisions when investigating or prosecuting officers.
“So he can have an endorsement from every city and town because I don’t take them,” Ryan said. “That doesn’t mean it was a fair fight.”
Experience versus change
Both candidates ultimately frame the election as a choice about what the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office needs next, and they each cite their own experience as relevant to that choice.
Solet argues that his experience prosecuting cases from inside the office gives him a detailed understanding of where it needs to improve.
“I think there are major changes in leadership style and management style that I would make in the office,” he said.
His campaign has emphasized a broader agenda that includes a dedicated Crime Gun Unit, stronger protections against elder financial exploitation, reforms to drugged-driving laws, changes to the dangerousness statute, and greater attention to cybercrime and emerging technology.
“I will lead from principle, and I will speak out to protect victims, even if it ruffles some feathers,” Solet said in announcing his Newton police endorsements. “My goal is to build an office that is truly committed to equal justice under law.”
Ryan, meanwhile, argues that her 13 years leading the office have given her experience navigating crises that could not have been anticipated when she first took office.
She also points to Middlesex County’s public-safety record as evidence that her approach is working.
“The core mission – the reason there is a DA’s office – is because we have to protect public safety, and I’m doing that,” Ryan said.
Ryan cited independent rankings that place Middlesex among the safest large counties in the country. (BoomTownIndex ranks Middlesex County No. 10 among large counties based on homicide rates, while CrimeGrade gives the county an overall “A” crime grade.)
But Ryan said the election is about more than crime statistics. She has made defending the rule of law and responding to the Trump administration a central part of her campaign, citing her office’s legal challenges involving immigration enforcement and her work with state officials.
“In 2018, I filed the federal case Ryan v. ICE, which was the first case in the country to successfully get an injunction to keep ICE out of the courtroom,” she said.
For Solet, the central question is whether the office should continue on its current path.
“The district attorney does not answer to anybody—not the governor, the president, or the attorney general of Massachusetts,” Solet said. “The district attorney is an elected official with enormous power and discretion.”
“That is why it is so important that people be represented by a district attorney who is not afraid to do the right thing, and who they can count on to do the right thing even when no one is watching.”
The September 1 Democratic primary election will determine which vision Middlesex County Democratic voters prefer: Ryan’s argument for experienced leadership and continuity, or Solet’s call for a new approach from a prosecutor who says his years inside the office showed him where change is needed.