The “unofficial” primary results from the Town’s Clerk’s office show Southborough voters aligned with voters across the state – except where we had a personal connection. Here are the highlights.
Yesterday, 18.1% of eligible registered Southborough voters cast ballots in the state’s primary. That’s a few points up from 2014 stats, but appears to be on the low side for the state.
The only true outlier in town results involved resident-candidate Louis Kuchnir.
Kuchiner handly won the Town’s vote (79% to 21%) for the Republican nominee for US Congress. But he won’t be challenging Katherine Clarke in November. The 5th District nominated John Hugo with 63.7% of the vote.*
The Democrat’s candidate with Southborough links – Quentin Palfrey – fared better. Palfrey, who grew up in Southborough, beat Jimmy Tingle by 17.8% across the state to be the nominee for Lt. Governor. In Southborough, he had a wider margin (68.5% to 31.5%).* But the nominee will have a tougher battle this fall, since he’s going up against the Baker administration’s Karyn Polito.
Otherwise, Southborough results were pretty reflective of state/district tallies I could find – at least when comparing the total votes cast for official candidates.*
I wasn’t able to find state results that included write-ins or blanks. For most seats on Southborough ballots, there were a fair number of those (mostly blanks).
But none compare to the write-ins for one regional race. It turns out that that I may have been premature when I reported that the primary would decide who our representative on the Governor’s Council is. Incumbent Marilyn Petitto Devaney beat challenger Nick Carter for the Democratic nomination. But a Republican’s campaign I was unaware of seems to have made headway in our town.
The unofficial results for the Republican ballot list Aaron Hutchins with 0 votes. But it is just there as a placeholder while officials verify how many of the 117 write-ins were for the unlisted candidate. According to the his Facebook page, Hutchins was campaigning in area towns to get the 1,000 total write-ins he needs to be listed on the November ballot.
Even in officially contested races a number of voters didn’t choose a name on the ballot. Revisiting the the Lt. Governor’s race, 15.7% of the total ballots actually included blanks or write-ins. There were even more for the Governor’s race.
That could be due to the popularity of the Governor’s office. (Baker’s win was even more decisive in Southborough than across the state.) Other contested positions had much fewer. Generally, it was the uncontested offices that had the most blanks. Though, among the uncontested seats, Maura Healey and Elizabeth Warren captured the highest confidence in Southborough with only 8-9% blanks and write-ins.
The Town’s voter results don’t indicate which party voters were registered to. So, I can’t tell you how many of yesterday’s voters were party loyalists vs swing voters.
While there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in town (23% vs 15%), over 60% of Southborough voters are unenrolled, giving them a choice. Close to 55% of voters who showed up turned in Democratic ballots, 45% Republican ballots, and 0.5% Libertarian ballots.
I got a few questions from people who wondered if yesterday was going to include Ballot Questions. Those will be on the general ballot this fall. (You can see the questions here.)
The state election will take place on November 6th with early voting available beginning October 22nd. (Stay tuned for those details.) The last day to register to vote is October 17th. You can find more details here.
Now here are the Southborough votes that were cast in contested races yesterday:
For the full town results, including the uncontested races, click here.
*The results above for the 5th Congress and Lt. Governor’s office race refer to % of votes cast for official candidates listed on the ballots – not counting blanks or write-ins.
