The pandemic is still raging, but politics in Lowell marches on. The first city election under our new district/at-large system will take place this fall and there is already a (virtual) buzz created by committed and contemplated candidates for city council and school committee.

Even though the boundaries of the districts will not be set until the 2020 census data is released – something that might not happen until April or May – the approximate outlines of the districts are known. (Check out my prior blog post on the likely district boundaries).

Since no election happens in isolation, it is helpful to have some historic context to assist in your political analysis. For that reason, I’d like to introduce (or re-introduce) readers to our Elections and Results page.

The following screenshots help illustrate what information is located there and how it is organized. Remember, the images below are screenshots so the blue hyperlinks are not active; go to the actual elections page for the live links:

When you’re on the richardhowe.com homepage, the Elections & Results box is always at the center of the page. Just click the “Browse Elections” link in that box (above image) to take you to the main elections page.

One on that main Elections page, scroll down to the Lowell City Elections section (below image):

Let’s say you want to see what happened in the 2019 City Election. Just click on that link and it will bring you to the following page:

This page lists the candidates in order of finish with the number of votes they received. (The reason there are two columns for vote totals is that some elections have districts that reach beyond Lowell so the first column is votes in the entire district while the second is just votes in Lowell). The table also shows which candidates were incumbents and which candidates won.

Notice that the candidate names are in blue which means they are hyperlinks. Clicking on a candidate name will bring you to that candidate’s biographical page. Eventually, I will add details like neighborhood of residence, occupation, education, and other facts, but for now the main thing contained on a candidate’s “bio” page is other elections in which that candidate ran.

To illustrate, pretend that we click on third place finisher John Drinkwater’s name in the 2019 City Election table shown above. That brings us to John Drinkwater’s bio page (below):

This page shows that Drinkwater ran for State Senate in the 2018 Democratic Primary but did not win (click on the blue 2018 Democratic Primary to see the page with that race). It also shows that he ran in the 2019 City Preliminary and the 2019 City Elections and was successful in both.

Finally, if you are interested in a particular candidate, rather than a particular election, click on the blue “Candidate Biographies” box near the top of the main Elections and Results page. On the Biographies page, type the last name of the candidate in the “search” box and a link to that candidate’s biographical page will appear. Click on the link, and all the elections in which that person was a candidate will appear.

Over the coming months I hope to add more state and city election results going all the way back to 1970 on this page, so please check back from time-to-time to see new content.