Massachusetts U.S. Senate Candidates Lay Out Visions for Ending Hunger

Massachusetts candidates for the U.S. Senate recently faced a question with consequences for families across the Commonwealth: What should the federal government do to end hunger?

On Wednesday’s food security-focused Make Hunger History U.S. Senate Candidate Forum, hosted at Project Bread, Democrat Rep. Seth Moulton, Republican John Deaton, and Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate Joe Tache outlined distinct approaches to the problem. Their proposals ranged from expanding SNAP and school meals to investing in local agriculture, connecting food assistance with health care, and addressing the economic conditions that contribute to food insecurity.

Make Hunger History invited all Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidates to participate in the forum.
 

The future of SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, took center stage during the forum. Nearly 175,000 Massachusetts residents have stopped receiving SNAP since the One Big Beautiful Act passed Congress last November, with children under 18 accounting for more than a third of those losing benefits.

Moulton called for expanding federal nutrition programs. “We should be expanding SNAP, not making it more difficult to get food. We should be expanding WIC. We should make sure that kids universally have food in school,” Moulton said. He also advocated for universal pre-K, noting that some of the youngest children do not benefit from school-based food programs. Moulton said the federal government should play a greater role in preventing hunger rather than responding only after families are already struggling.

Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate Joe Tache brought both professional and lived experience with hunger to the discussion. He recalled working in after-school and summer programs where young people would arrive hungry and eat granola bars, instant ramen or whatever staff could provide. After being laid off in 2020, he applied for SNAP himself.

“I realized that not just with the expansion of SNAP, but the expansion of the child tax credit, the social safety net, that our federal government actually does have the resources and the capabilities to very quickly marshal resources to ensure that people do not fall through the cracks,” Tache said. “It makes me wonder, and I think it should make us all ask, why is that only reserved for times when the system is in crisis and not for times like now when everyday people are in crisis?”

Tache also called for a federal jobs program and greater investment in the public workforce, saying it should “ensure that programs like SNAP are fully funded, but also that offices like DTA have the workers that they need to fully function.”

Republican John Deaton said the government should maintain a social safety net for vulnerable people, citing his own experience with poverty. He proposed doubling the child tax credit and referenced the SUN Bucks program. Deaton also discussed his experience receiving free lunch as a child in Detroit, but noted that support was unavailable during the summer.

Deaton stated that confusion between administrative error and intentional fraud can threaten SNAP funding. He argued that error rates are often mistaken for fraud and said that highly publicized fraud cases are used to justify program cuts. Deaton said educating lawmakers on this distinction would help secure long-term funding for these programs.
 

Beyond SNAP, the candidates discussed how food reaches Massachusetts communities and the role local agriculture can play in improving access to it.

Moulton pointed to food pantries on the North Shore that purchase locally grown produce. “One of the best parts of the food pantries on the North Shore is that they buy a lot of local produce, which not only helps sustain local agriculture, it reduces the environmental cost, the shipping cost, and everything else of the food they put on the table for needy families,” he said.

Deaton also saw an opportunity to connect local farmers with families experiencing food insecurity. “We have farmers. Let’s incentivize them with tax credits to feed the food banks and provide directly to the food banks,” he said.

Tache offered his vision for the food system. He argued that large agricultural companies should be under public control so decisions about what food to produce could be based on community needs. “Rather than being driven by the small shareholders, the billionaires that determine what to produce based on profit, they should actually determine what to produce based on need and based on what’s healthy for our communities and based on not polluting the environment and using more resources than we need to,” he said.

The conversation also extended beyond food assistance to health care, housing, education, and poverty.

Tache argued that those issues cannot be addressed separately. “You can’t separate health and food and housing and education because all those things are connected to the experience that you’re, that we’re living on a day-to-day basis,” Tache said. He supported expanding and codifying assistance programs and argued that health care settings could help connect people with other resources. Tache said patients visiting a doctor’s office could be informed about programs that help them access food and housing assistance.

Moulton also linked food access to other basic needs. “It should be a fundamental human right to get great education, great housing, and healthcare and food assistance if you need it across the country,” Moulton said.

Deaton focused on the relationship between poverty and economic opportunity. He recalled his mother speaking to him after he dropped out of high school because of gun violence. “I’m sorry, son. College isn’t for people like us,” Deaton recalled her saying. Deaton said the experience illustrated what poverty could do to people’s expectations for their lives. He called for vocational training to accompany work requirements rather than cutting people off from assistance for failing to meet guidelines on paper.

The candidates also discussed structural factors that leave certain people and communities more vulnerable to hunger.

Moulton called attention to racial disparities in food insecurity. “It’s also important to address the fact that food insecurity disproportionately hits minority communities, communities of color,” he said. “We have to have targeted assistance to address this fundamental inequity, both in Massachusetts and nationwide, and that should be a clear policy goal of ours as well.”

Tache linked hunger to broader economic inequality and argued that the causes of food insecurity are systemically intertwined with those of other challenges facing working families. “Fundamentally, I believe that the question of hunger is not rocket science. We actually know how many people live in this country. We know where they live. We know their ages. We know what a healthy diet looks like for all those people,” Tache said. “The reason that we can't provide food for people in this country has nothing to do with human nature. It has nothing to do with logistical challenges. It has to do with the system.”

Deaton emphasized lifting people out of poverty while preserving assistance for those who need it. He also argued that misconceptions about SNAP fraud can threaten that assistance, saying the perception of fraud “probably isn’t nearly as significant as people think it is, but then it allows for people to start making cuts.”
 

The forum comes as Project Bread and partners across the Commonwealth are working toward an ambitious goal through Make Hunger History: making Massachusetts the first state in the nation to permanently end hunger.

The Make Hunger History Coalition, led by Project Bread, brings together people working in food access, health care, public health, local agriculture, government, philanthropy, and grassroots advocacy.

The forum gave voters a chance to hear how three candidates would approach that goal and where their visions differ. Decisions made in Washington about SNAP, school meals, agriculture, health care, and economic policy can directly affect whether Massachusetts residents have access to the food they need.

With the Massachusetts primary on September 1 and the general election on November 3, voters can visit Project Bread’s 2026 Voter Resource Center to learn more about the election and watch the forum recording to hear directly from the U.S. Senate candidates, as well as questionnaire responses from candidates in other contested races.
 

As a 501c3 organization, the Make Hunger History Coalition (MHH)/Project Bread hosted this candidate forum with the U.S. Senate candidates to educate voters and the public on hunger and policies to address it and help voters learn about the candidates’ stances on food security.  We cannot and will not endorse or oppose any candidate for this position. This event and blog was strictly informational and educational. The candidates' opinions shared in this blog post are theirs alone and not the positions of the Make Hungry History Coalition or its members.