Monday, November 11, 2002 :::
Election results by state senate district
Let me start by telling you how I'm lying. My results are based on unofficial city-and-town data from the Globe the day after the election. The towns of Chilmark and Leyden had not yet reported, so they've been ignored. Cities and towns split across senate districts were treated as homogenous -- for example, three of Northborough's four precincts are in the First Worcester district, so I assigned three quarters of each vote in Northborough to the First Worcester. I'm comfortable having done this for places like Northborough. I'm less comfortable having done this for Boston, Worcester, Springfield, and Cambridge -- take the Suffolk County (i.e., mostly Boston) districts with an extra grain of salt.
That said, here's what I found:
Six districts voted yes on Question 1 (to repeal the state income tax). None are held by a Republican. In order, starting with the most supportive, the districts are Worcester and Norfolk; First Essex; Cape and Islands; First Plymouth and Bristol; Plymouth and Barnstable; and Second Plymouth and Bristol. Second P&B passed it by 25 votes, though, and some of those towns are fractional. The First Bristol and Plymouth rejected it by 54 votes out of 40,000; no towns are split there, but, as I say, results are unofficial. All six districts which passed it supported Romney over O'Brien (First P&B did not).
27 of the 40 districts went for Romney over O'Brien (I excluded votes for the other candidates for Governor). The top three Romney districts are all held by Republicans (Tarr, Sprague, and Hedlund) -- whether this is because their districts just naturally lean Republican or whether the (incumbent) Senators helped Romney is left for speculation. The fourth most pro-Romney district was Norfolk, Bristol, and Middlesex, held by leftist Cheryl Jacques (who was re-elected with 60% of the vote).
Every senator who ran for re-election won -- Jacques was actually in one of the closest races.
I reserve the right to add to this entry without notice.
::: posted by Steven at 2:13 PM
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