FALL RIVER — Almost as soon as Thomas M. Hodgson was appointed Bristol County sheriff by the governor in 1997, he became a lightning rod for controversy.
Hodgson, a Republican and avid Donald Trump fan in a county that favored Joe Biden by 12 points in 2020, has been sharply criticized for his harsh treatment of inmates, and, most recently, for an ad some describe as antisemitic — a characterization he vehemently rejects.
This year, Democrats believe they’ve found the man to finally defeat Hodgson, the state’s longest-serving sheriff, in Paul Heroux, the mayor of Attleboro.
“I almost want to talk about his race more than the AG’s race,” Democratic nominee for state attorney general Andrea Campbell said Saturday at a campaign event for Heroux in Fall River.
Advertisement
An internal poll released by Heroux’s campaign found the two are neck and neck.
“This is a winnable race,” Heroux, told the crowd. “I want to run a much more modern jail system, a jail system that is actually going to help people.”
In the late 1990s, Hodgson attracted national attention when he introduced the use of chain gangs, the Globe reported at the time.
More recently, the sheriff volunteered inmates to help build Trump’s wall on the country’s southern border and faced accusations of harsh treatment at an immigration detainment facility in Dartmouth for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. Last year the Biden administration ended the contact with Hodgson over those complaints.
A state commission report released in January found he spends just over $1,000 per inmate on reentry programs, a third of what the next lowest county spends. His jails account for 25 percent of inmate suicides in Massachusetts, but only 13 percent of the jail population, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting found.
Advertisement
Hodgson called the criticisms of his immigrant detention facility partisan political attacks, and he pointed to repeated accreditation from the National Commission of Correctional Health Care when asked about the suicides.
Speaking on the sidelines of a rally with dozens of supporters in Somerset on Friday evening, Hodgson said he wants to expand inmates’ access to local vocational schools so they can learn trades, but mostly he focuses on a more existential message.
“We have these progressive, left-wing groups that are suggesting that the real victims are the criminals,” he told the Globe. “There’s never been a more important time ... to reclaim the rule of law in our communities and give the people back the safety and security they rightfully deserve.”
Hodgson repeatedly accused his opponent of wanting to “defund the police” and said Heroux doesn’t have the requisite experience.
Heroux said he has never wanted to defund the police and that the sheriff’s office cannot reduce local police budgets. Heroux said he worked in the Philadelphia prison system and headed the Massachusetts Department of Correction research unit.
Though Hodgson casts himself as a lawman, that is not the role of sheriffs in Massachusetts, Heroux said. Unlike elsewhere in the country, sheriffs here run the jails and don’t have a major law enforcement role.
Heroux said his top priorities if elected would be an audit of the suicide issue, working with community groups to beef up reentry programs, and introducing data collection to find out if programs are working.
Advertisement
“[Hodgson] talks a really good game, but he doesn’t actually have any evidence he’s keeping people safe,” he said.
The latest twist in the race came last week when Hodgson posted an ad online that some have called antisemitic.
“Everyday cities such as New York and Chicago are being taken over by violent criminals because politicians supported by George Soros and his followers don’t believe that criminals should be in jail,” Hodgson narrates as ominous-looking black-and-white photos of Soros, a financier and philanthropist, flash across the screen.
Two days after the posting, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston tweeted that “casting a Jewish individual as a puppet master who manipulates national events for malign purposes has the effect of mainstreaming antisemitic tropes & giving support, however unwitting, to bona fide antisemites.”
Heroux called the ad an antisemitic dog whistle.
Hodgson bristles at the accusations, pointing to his appearances at American Israel Public Affairs Committee events.
However, while listing his concerns about Heroux on Friday, Hodgson returned unprompted to Soros.
“[Heroux] really is being supported by the defund the police movements, the George Soroses of the world, funding organizations, Bloomberg,” he said, referring to former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is also Jewish.
Neither Soros nor Bloomberg have given directly to Heroux’s campaign, according to campaign finance reports. Hodgson’s campaign said Bloomberg and Soros have given to super PACs supporting Democrats. Many non-Jewish individuals support Democratic super PACs.
Heroux has also attracted criticism. He appeared on Russia Today as a Middle East expert even after concerns were raised that the channel serves as the Kremlin’s propaganda arm abroad, as the Globe reported in 2018. Heroux said he cut ties with the channel after learning it had registered as a foreign agent.
Advertisement
Hodgson pitches himself as a one-man bulwark standing between Bristol County and bedlam brought on by shadowy outsiders, be they Beacon Hill Democrats, undocumented immigrants, gangs that he says are taking over Fall River, or national progressives funded by two Jewish investors.
It’s a message that appeals to some.
“He’s a true American,” said John Haran, a 72-year-old Dartmouth resident, as he held a sign for Hodgson Friday. “He’s one of ours.”
To his supporters, Hodgson is Bristol County’s lone ranger, and he’s circling the wagons.
Alexander Thompson can be reached at alexander.thompson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @AlMThompson