Patrick sweeps the North County

I'm not surprised that Patrick won, but I'm stunned both by the margin statewide and that he carried all of Northern Worcester County, despite our reputation as being more conservative than counties to the East and West (for instance, not one town in the North County went Democratic in the 2002 general election). I would have expected the region to go for Gabrieli or Reilly. But as we look at the results, Patrick not only won across the region, he earned majorities in many of them. Here are results from the surrounding towns:

CITY            PATRICK      GABRIELI     REILLY
Leominster      1,904  41%   1,523  33%   1,189  26%
Bolton            401  61%     161  25%      95  14%
Clinton           829  45%     451  24%     566  31%
Fitchburg       2,084  44%   1,433  30%   1,228  26%
Lancaster         488  61%     187  23%     131  16%
Princeton         315  59%     152  28%      67  13%
Sterling          427  51%     248  30%     161  19%

I'm stunned that Lancaster of all towns went that heavily for the most progressive candidate. To give you an idea how conservative Lancaster is (comparatively), Kerry only beat Bush by two votes in 2004. In fact, Sterling went for Bush two years ago, yet a majority of today's voters went for the more liberal choice.

The question for the general election will be whether or not independents came out for Patrick and will stay with him for the general, or if the votes he received were exclusively from party activists. If it is the former, Patrick will win easily. If it is the latter, we're in for a tough fight ahead.

Tags: Massachusetts Election 2006 Democrat Primary Deval Patrick