While the nation-wide presidential race is wide-open and full of voter interest, local elections this fall will be comparatively boring.All sitting Allston-Brighton representatives and senators in the State Legislature are running for re-election unopposed.
Yawn.
While the certified nomination signatures are not due until Tuesday, May 27th from the local elections officials to the Elections Division in the Secretary of the Commwealth's office, the names of those individuals who pulled out nomination papers for each office are available. Only the current office-holders have pulled nomination papers for the two representative and two senator offices in A-B, according to an official at the Elections Division. Assuming that each candidate has submitted a sufficient number of valid signatures, they will all run unopposed.
17th Suffolk: Representative Kevin Honan (Democratic Party)Two years ago Representative Moran faced a Republican in the general election, Russell Evans, who mounted a vigorous campaign throughout the district. The challenger only garnered 17% of the vote in the election, however, because, of course, A-B is quite liberal and heavily Democratic. (In 2006, 54% of registered voters across Suffolk county were listed as Democrats while only 8% were listed as Republicans.)
18th Suffolk: Representative Michael Moran (D)
2nd Suffolk and Middlesex: Senator Steven Tolman (D)
Middlesex, Suffolk, and Essex: Senator Anthony Galluccio (D)
Senator Galluccio won his seat in an open, special election last year after Senator Jarrett Barrios stepped down to take a position with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts. The Democratic primary seemed a reasonable race, but, lo and behold, no Republican challenger for the subsequent general election.
Neither Representative Honan nor Senator Tolman faced opposition for their seats in 2006.
Will somebody, please, spice up this fall's local elections in A-B by running a sticker/write-in campaign, !
Image of optical scanner and ballot by .michael.newman., and fluffernutter sandwich by roboppy, provided through a Creative Commons license.
2 comments:
Forgive me if this seems an overly simplistic question, but...why should anyone run against Honan, Moran, Tolman, or Galluccio? As you yourself pointed out, a Republican running against Moran only garnered 17% of the vote in Allston/Brighton--why would any Republican risk their time and money trying to unseat any of the above mentioned office-holders?
There could also be a Democratic primary challenge to any of those office-holders, not just a Republican challenge in the general election.
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