Martha Coakley is well on her way to a big win in the neighborhoods of Dorchester and Mattapan— and will win the city of Boston handily. But will her margin of victory in the capital city give her enough fuel to outrun a surging Charlie Baker?

Coakley, who once lived in Dorchester's Neponset neighborhood in the 1990s, scored narrow wins in her old turf tonight, winning several Ward 16 precincts by close margins, including the double precinct at Florian Hall. As of this writing, it's too close to say who will win Ward 16, the coastal side of Dorchester that typically tilts more conservative than their neighbors to the west.

Elsewhere, though, Coakley ran up lopsided margins against her Republican opponent. At the Lower Mills Library double-precinct, it was a Coakley victory, 959-286. In Savin Hill, where Mayor Marty Walsh's operation was tested, Coakley carried the day by a tally of 553-361. And in St. Mark's double precinct, it was Coakley 994-298 over Baker.

Coakley really poured on the sauce in the predominantly black precincts of Dorchester, Mattapan and Hyde Park where the Democratic machinery led by outgoing Gov. Deval Patrick had pushed hard for her candidacy. Coakley ran up Patrick-like margins against Baker in these voter-rich precincts: At the Chittick School on the Mattapan-Hyde Park line, Coakley notched a beatdown: 1,539-155 over Baker.

It was a similar story at the Hassan Apartments, a heavily Haitian-American voting spot off River Street where Coakley tacked on 697 votes to Baker's 57. In ward 17's Mildred Ave. School, a similar outcome: Coakley 538-Baker 55. And on it goes throughout the city's communities of color, places where Baker had hoped to exceed past Republicans on the tally sheet.

As the night progresses, the question will come to whether or not Coakley's totals in Boston and other urban centers with withstand the Republican wins getting chalked up in places like Swampscott and Billerica, not to mention Quincy and elsewhere.

Update: At 12:05 a.m. on Wednesday, Coakley's running mate Steve Kerrigan addressed supporters at the Coakley party in Boston's Fairmount Copley hotel. He told the crowd it was too close to call and that the wait for returns would stretch into the morning.

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