LexObserver published an article on Jonathan Paz, who is also running to represent District 5 in Congress, last week. The Lexington Observer hopes to interview Katherine Clark before the primary election.
Tarik Samman, a 27-year-old Lowell native, first-time politician, and son of Syrian immigrants, is running in the Democratic primary to represent Massachusetts’ 5th District, which includes Lexington, in Congress.
Samman, who now lives in a studio apartment in Cambridge, is challenging Democratic Whip Katherine Clark for her seat. Clark has been in Congress since 2013 and has risen to be one of the most powerful Democrats in the House.
A researcher and union organizer by trade, Samman hopes to make Massachusetts more affordable by increasing access to housing and healthcare, weighing in on foreign policy, and fighting PAC money in Washington if elected.
“We need to limit the influence of corporate PACs, super PACs, foreign PACs, we need to fix the way we run our own election and election finances, we need to set a term limit…to make it easier for us to run our own agenda to make life more affordable for Americans,” Samman told the Observer in an interview about his campaign.
This race is Samman’s entrance into the political sphere.
Samman’s father immigrated to Massachusetts from Damascus, Syria, in the 1980s to study at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. After college, Samman’s father moved back to Syria, married Samman’s mother, and returned to Massachusetts, where Samman was born in 1998.
Samman is the youngest candidate in the District 5 race — six years younger than Waltham native Jonathan Paz, and 36 years younger than Clark. Asked about his age, Samman noted many young candidates have been elected.
“[Alexandria Ocasio Cortez] entered Congress at 29, Maxwell Frost entered when he was 25. Elijah Manley now in Florida — he has a big chance and he’s younger than me,” Samman said.
After 9/11, Samman and his family moved from Lowell to Damascus because they felt unwelcome and unsafe in the States. But returning to the Middle East was dangerous in its own way. The Arab Spring ignited the Syrian Civil War while he was living in Damascus. His neighborhood became a place of checkpoints, explosions, and attacks.
“Every single family in Syria faced death, knew a person in prison,” he recalled. “Living through that experience changed my perspective and view on foreign policy and on politics in general.”
His family lost almost everything because of the war and borrowed money to move back to the U.S., he said.
Samman finished high school in Texas, went to a community college in California while working full-time, and graduated from the University of California, Irvine, in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in social science.
“You bet my first job out of college, in 2020 during the pandemic, was as an Uber driver,” he said.
Samman then went to Columbia University for graduate school to study data science with a concentration in foreign policy. His goal was to do research after graduating and that’s just what he did. Samman got a job as a research associate at Harvard Law School and later became an organizer with the Harvard Academic Workers Union.
That was only about five years ago.
Samman argued there should be more young people in Congress because younger generations will pay for the debt that older generations created.
“One thing Congress controls that other lower offices don’t control is foreign policy. When it comes to foreign policy, we are in debt because of all the foreign wars that we go into. And when it comes to debt, we are going to pay the bills — it’s our generation that’s going to struggle with it, so we should have a say when it comes to foreign affairs,” he argued.
Foreign affairs — specifically, U.S. participation in Middle East conflicts — is an issue Samman is passionate about.
The son of immigrants who spent much of his childhood in Syria, Samman argued he deeply understands the nuances of the Middle Eastern conflicts, which would be valuable in Congress.
“The fact that when we talk about the current war with Iran, we don’t talk about the 1950s, how we (the U.S.) intervened at the time, and how that interference brought the current system into power — it’s ridiculous,” Samman said.
In 1953, Britain and the U.S. organized a coup to overthrow Iran’s leader, Mohammad Mossadegh, after he nationalized the oil industry, restoring the Shah, who ruled as an authoritarian monarch until 1979.
“A guy from the Middle East understands the complexities of the Middle East and that’s why my voice is important in Congress,” Samman said.
He also argued the U.S. sends too much money to Israel.
“We are not achieving our goals, we are going into debt because of it, and we are not supposed to be killing children overseas,” he said.
That money could go toward the increasingly expensive living necessities many Americans are struggling to afford, he argued. Samman thinks education, healthcare, and transportation “should be available to everyone through the government.”
He’d also like the U.S. Department of Defense to be audited. Samman ventured to guess “there is a lot of money going to waste.”
“We send billions of dollars to Israel and Israel has [universal] healthcare,” he said. “We are financing their healthcare, yet we are struggling to have our own free healthcare.”
Samman spoke about the issue of affordability at length. He thinks Washington should create a plan that’s equal to FDR’s New Deal.
“We should take a bigger step when it comes to healthcare. We should take a bigger step when it comes to childcare and housing,” he said.
When it comes to housing, Samman vowed to lobby for municipalities to amend bylaws that create roadblocks for people trying to buy houses.
“I will be an advocate for the people of Massachusetts, at their city halls, at their town halls. I will go there and I will make sure the city councils and the mayors are not making it harder for people to buy a house,” he said.
At the federal level, Samman supports providing tax credits to first-time home buyers.
But ultimately, Washington can’t do anything about the affordability crisis or foreign policy unless the issue of money in politics is fixed, Samman said.
Many congresspeople take money from PACs (Political Action Committees that pool money from individuals, businesses, or groups to support or oppose candidates) and are beholden to their interests, he argued. Clark accepts money from PACs, Samman repeated, which he disapproves of. The Whip has accepted money from AIPAC, Delta Air Lines PAC, and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company PAC, among others.
“If you get elected with the support of these PACs…you can’t vote against their interests, you can’t sponsor a bill against their interests, and you are no longer putting the people of Massachusetts’ interests on top of these PAC,” he said. Samman vowed not to accept money from any PAC.
Samman believes ICE should be abolished and a new, more humane, immigration system should be created. He said workers at some of the local businesses he’s visited during his campaign were afraid to talk to him because of what’s going on with ICE right now.
“That’s the fear atmosphere that ICE brought in,” he said. “It’s unacceptable.”
A future immigration agency should work with local governments so people have a say in how ICE operates because right now, Samman argued, so many Americans disapprove of ICE’s actions.
“Citizens have made it clear that what ICE is doing is unacceptable…but Trump is not listening,” he said.
Samman isn’t unfamiliar with the fear that many people in America are feeling today because of ICE. Since 9/11, he and his family have experienced rampant Islamophobia in the States.
“I heard stories of my grandma and my mom, who are hijabis, getting spat on in the streets of Massachusetts just for being a Muslim,” Samman said, “I heard stories of my father being followed after going to the Mosque.”
“You’ve probably heard about jokes in the airport, but it was not a joke, how [TSA] would take you to the side, ask you questions, you would stand there for hours, and they would humiliate your parents in front of you because they’re Muslim,” he added.
Samman admires Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York, for speaking out against Islamophobia.
Asked what makes him better for this role than Paz or Clark, Samman pointed to his campaign flyer and said, “this is a picture of me when I started my campaign and this is me right now… what do you notice? I’ve lost a lot of weight because I’ve been working on the ground 24/7.”
He said both candidates are “career politicians” and he is not, which means he can bring the mentality of an outsider.
As a young candidate, Samman said he always tells young people two things: “First, if you’re not at the table, you’re probably on the menu, and second, we always say the greatest generation in America is the generation that went to Europe to fight facism…When they did that, their average age was younger than me,” he said. “I think my generation should be the new greatest generation that will fight fascism and dictatorship here at home.”
Samman and Clark are also challenged by Paz, a 33-year-old Waltham native, son of Bolivian immigrants, and avid ICE protestor.
The MA primary election, where voters will choose whether Clark, Paz, or Samman will appear on the general election ballot, is slated for Sept. 1, 2026. The general election is scheduled for Nov. 3, 2026.