NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, April 30th, 2013

Ed Markey, Gabriel Gomez have early leads in Massachusetts’ U.S. Senate special primary

Vot­ing in Mass­a­chu­setts’ spe­cial elec­tion to deter­mine who will rep­re­sent the Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can par­ties in the race to suc­ceed Sen­a­tor John Ker­ry has end­ed, and the results are begin­ning to trick­le in.

As of just before 5:45 PM Pacif­ic, with around one-fourth of precincts report­ing, U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ed Markey and for­mer Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez led their respec­tive chal­lengers for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tions. Each had been con­sid­ered his par­ty’s fron­trun­ner, so these results aren’t too surprising.

Here are the numbers:

MA-Sen­ate — Demo­c­ra­t­ic Spe­cial Primary
April 30, 2013 — Results as of 05:41PM Pacific
56 of 2172 Precincts Report­ing — 26%

Ed Markey: 58% (74,623 votes)
Stephen Lynch: 42% (53,766 votes)

MA-Sen­ate — Repub­li­can Spe­cial Primary
April 30th, 2013 — Results as of 05:42PM Pacific
538 of 2172 Precincts Report­ing — 25%

Gabriel Gomez: 52% (26,782 votes)
Mike Sul­li­van: 35% (18,056 votes)
Dan Winslow: 13% (6,652 votes)

Results are com­ing in at a steady pace, so it’s like­ly these num­bers will be out­dat­ed by the time many NPI Advo­cate read­ers see this post.

How­ev­er, it’s always nice to have a snapshot.

Ed Markey’s lead stood at 61% ear­li­er when few­er votes had been tal­lied and report­ed. It has since shrunk, but not by that much. Gomez has been in the low fifties for a while. His clos­est chal­lenger is Mike Sul­li­van, but he’s pulling in enough votes that third-place fin­ish­er Dan Winslow can’t be called a spoiler.

Democ­rats Ed Markey and Stephen Lynch, as many read­ers may know, are both mem­bers of Mass­a­chu­setts’ U.S. House del­e­ga­tion. Markey is con­sid­ered to be more pro­gres­sive and has a stronger vot­ing record, accord­ing to ProgressivePunch.

The Boston Globe report­ed that turnout for this elec­tion was fair­ly low, with polling places not see­ing much activ­i­ty. Elec­tion fatigue may be par­ty to blame — last year’s elec­tions dom­i­nat­ed air­waves and mail­box­es for a pret­ty long time.

UPDATE, 6:20 PM: The Asso­ci­at­ed Press and major news out­lets are pro­ject­ing that Markey and Gomez are the win­ners of their respec­tive pri­maries. With more than 70% of bal­lots now count­ed, it’s evi­dent that their oppo­nents aren’t going to close the gap. It will be Markey vs. Gomez from now until June 25th.

Adjacent posts

  • Enjoyed what you just read? Make a donation


    Thank you for read­ing The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s jour­nal of world, nation­al, and local politics.

    Found­ed in March of 2004, The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate has been help­ing peo­ple through­out the Pacif­ic North­west and beyond make sense of cur­rent events with rig­or­ous analy­sis and thought-pro­vok­ing com­men­tary for more than fif­teen years. The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate is fund­ed by read­ers like you and trust­ed spon­sors. We don’t run ads or pub­lish con­tent in exchange for money.

    Help us keep The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate edi­to­ri­al­ly inde­pen­dent and freely avail­able to all by becom­ing a mem­ber of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute today. Or make a dona­tion to sus­tain our essen­tial research and advo­ca­cy journalism.

    Your con­tri­bu­tion will allow us to con­tin­ue bring­ing you fea­tures like Last Week In Con­gress, live cov­er­age of events like Net­roots Nation or the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion, and reviews of books and doc­u­men­tary films.

    Become an NPI mem­ber Make a one-time donation

One Comment

  1. Gomez should not be under­es­ti­mat­ed. Markey needs to work hard so he can avoid the fate of Martha Coakley.

    # by Kate Dircksen :: May 8th, 2013 at 10:03 AM
  • NPI’s essential research and advocacy is sponsored by: