Baker-Polito cruised in Ward 16, but Dems ‘won’ Dot and Mattapan

The Democratic ticket for governor and lieutenant governor was handed a decisive defeat last week as Massachusetts voters returned Charlie Baker and Karen Polito to office by a 34-point margin.

The Democrats— Jay Gonzalez and Quentin Palfrey — could point to a statistical victory in the city of Boston, but in finishing just 3,079 votes ahead of the Republicans, they hardly had anything to crow about.

Voters in Dorchester and Mattapan were split on the race. While the Democratic ticket for governor “won” Dorchester and Mattapan, the Baker-Polito ticket was competitive everywhere, winning 14 of the neighborhood’s 55 precincts, including the majority of votes cast in Dorchester’s Ward 16 (Neponset/Adams Corner/Fields Corner), home to more conservative, white voters than most sections of the city.

At Savin Hill’s bellwether 13-10 precinct, for instance, Baker-Polito beat the Democratic ticket 648-471. In the 17-13 precinct of Lower Mills, the GOP ticket bested the Dems, 399-383, while Gonzalez and his running mate took home a rare win in the other, Mattapan-centered precinct of 17-14 with a tally of 457-348.

Baker-Polito crushed the Democratic ticket at Florian Hall’s 16-12: 663-162.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren, who was tracking toward a 14-point win over GOP nominee Geoff Diehl across the state, could point to a deep advantage in Boston, where unofficial results showed her beating her Republican challenger with 76 percent of the vote to Diehl’s 19 percent. Diehl won but a single precinct in Dorchester: Florian Hall’s right-leaning 16-12 at Florian Hall, where he outpaced Warren, 458-354.

In the 13th Suffolk district, voters were presented with a non-binding question authored by Dorchester People for Peace. The question asked voters if they would direct their state representative to vote in favor of a “racial justice” resolution . The measure passed easily, 9,665 to 2,435, with 2,027 ballots left blank.


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