2008 Election

2008 Election Results

In Massachusetts in 2008, the presidential primary was held on February 5, the state primary on September 16, and the state election on November 4. In Lowell for that election there were 51,988 registered voters of which 31,905 (61%) voted in the November election.
Both parties had contested primaries for the presidency. The Democrats had the following candidates with their state vote totals and city of Lowell vote totals shown after each name:

John Edwards – 20,101 – 269
Hillary Clinton – 705,185 – 8318
Joe Biden – 3216 – 47
Chris Dodd – 1120 – 16
Mike Gravel – 1463 – 14
Barack Obama – 521,680 – 4292

Here are the Republican presidential primary results:

John McCain – 204,779 – 1715
Fred Thompson – 916 – 9
Tom Tancredo – 153 – 1
Duncan Hunter – 258 – 3
Mike Huckabee – 19,103 – 161
Mitt Romney – 255,892 – 2086
Ron Paul – 13,251 – 138
Rudy Giuliani – 2707 – 22

In November, Barack Obama won both Massachusetts and Lowell, receiving 1,904,097 votes statewide to John McCain’s 1,108,854. In Lowell, Obama received 20,646 votes to McCain’s 10,393.

For the US Senate, John Kerry was challenged in the Democratic primary by Edward O’Reilly. Kerry received 342,446 votes statewide and 3135 in Lowell; O’Reilly received 154,395 votes statewide and 1614 in Lowell. In the general election, Kerry defeated Republican Jeffrey Beatty. Kerry got 21,038 votes in Lowell to Beatty’s 8332.

For Congress, Niki Tsongas was unopposed as were State Senator Steve Panagiotakos and State Representatives Tom Golden, Kevin Murphy and Dave Nangle.

For Governor’s Council, Democratic incumbent Marilyn Devaney was challenged in the primary by John Doyle and Thomas Walsh. District wide, Devaney received 23,515 votes to Doyle’s 14,722 and Walsh’s 5831. In Lowell, the vote was Devaney 1516, Doyle 1613, and Walsh 585. Devaney was unopposed in the state election.

In the Middlesex Register of Probate race, incumbent John Buonomo, who had won a special election in 2000 when then Register of Probate Robert Antonelli was removed from office by the Supreme Judicial Court for misconduct and was elected to a full six-year term in 2002, was headed for an unopposed race in 2008 when in August he was discovered stealing money from copying machines at the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds which shared space in the Cambridge Probate Court with the registry of probate. A number of Democrats waged sticker campaigns in the primary (John Aliperta of Billerica, Thomas Concannon of Newton, Richard Covino of Brockton (?), Paul Mattaliano of Arlington, Sean O’Donovan of Somerville and John Panica of Newton) but none came close to the vote total received by Buonomo whose name was the only one to appear on the ballot. Although there was no Republican candidate on the ballot, several of that party ran sticker campaigns in the primary but all failed to attain the 1000 votes needed to continue on to the November ballot so there was no Republican nominee. Buonomo, who had been suspended from office when the charges were brought, chose to voluntarily remove himself from the state ballot so a Democratic Party caucus, consisting of all the city and town Democratic committees for Middlesex County, gathered at Waltham High School on September 24, 2008 to select a nominee. The 13 candidates who originally sought the nomination were whittled down and on the fourth ballot, Tara DeCristofaro of Medford received the necessary votes to become the nominee. The second place finisher was Sean O’Donovan of Somerville. Lowell’s Maria Sheehy, who finished a very close third, was within a handful of votes of making the final two for that fourth ballot, but she fell just short. DeCristofaro was elected to a full term in November 2008. The office will next appear on the ballot in 2014.