Joe Boncore has won the State Senate race for the First Suffolk & Middlesex District in the Special Election Democratic primary on April 12th. With no Republican challenger, Boncore is the de facto winner in the general election on May 10th.
Boncore’s win was close with only about 400 votes over Dan Rizzo, 4019 to 3620, in unofficial election results. Coming in third was Jay Livingstone with 2803, followed by Lydia Edwards at 2363 and Diana Hwang at 2092. Typical of special elections, turnout was low with only 15,677 total votes cast.
The First Suffolk and Middlesex district seat was left open by the recent resignation of Anthony Petruccelli. The district includes Boston’s North End / Waterfront, Beacon Hill, East Boston as well as Revere, Winthrop and parts of Cambridge. The State Senate seat will also be on the ballot again this November.
An attorney and lifelong Winthrop resident, Joe Boncore is chairman of the Winthrop Housing Authority. A graduate of St. John’s Prep, Providence College, and the Massachusetts School of Law, he has been an attorney for the past 10 years. Boncore has 8 siblings, including 7 sisters.
At a recent forum, Boncore described himself as a strong activist for public affordable housing and focused on the drug addition crisis with a goal of making related treatment available through health insurance. Boncore is also an advocate to eliminate mandatory sentencing minimums in the court system and broadening access to early education. He supports the fair share tax amendment (i.e., millionaires tax) to increase revenue toward funding drug programs and raising education foundation spending per pupil as well as re-looking at Chapter 70.
Voting districts in the City of Boston gave Diana Hwang the most votes, closely followed by Jay Livingstone and Lydia Edwards. Boston represented 35% of the votes cast in the Special Election primary.
The North End (Ward 3, Precincts 1-4) picked the winner (again) putting Boncore at the top with 37% of the vote. The waterfront and downtown area (Ward 3, Precinct 6) favored Jay Livingstone.
The table below shows the local North End / Waterfront results by precinct.
Thanks, Matt.
Couldn’t find returns on Boston.com or other “news” sites easily but you have it!!!
So with <26% of the vote, Joe Boncore is elected. I don't know anything about him and have no reason to think he won't be a great Senator. I do think though that this is a lousy way to run an election. For all we know Joe could have been the one candidate that 70% of the voters were dead set against, but they split their votes among the other 6. There should be a runoff or, even better, an Instant-Runoff (aka Ranked Choice) Ballot.
Sounds like a Rizzo supporter is having a sad and grasping for straws. There is no run off. Deal with it
There are never runoffs in state elections, he is now the Democratic nominee. He would face a Republican in the general election if they had fielded a candidate.
I also think there was ample opportunity in this race to hear from the candidates. There were three candidates forums/debates and the candidates also attended numerous neighborhood meetings and events.
The bigger issue is more people should be voting in elections.
Congrats to you Joe, we are all with you.
Bob Church, at the Ausonia Apartments.
Perhaps Boston should model it’s GOTV effort after Winthrop and Revere. Their voting rates in this special election were similar to the most recent presidential primary. Kudos to them.
http://www.universalhub.com/2016/people-winthrop-voted-and-people-boston-didnt-and?nocache=1
I heard only around 130 votes over 14 hours at the Nazarro Center. Working there seemed to be excruciating.