It will be Katherine Clark (D-Melrose) who succeeds now-Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey in his former District 5 House of Representatives seat. Though the official special election results have yet to be released by Massachusetts Secretary William Galvin’s office, it’s estimated that Clark won handily taking approximately 40,000 votes – roughly 66 percent – to triumph over Frank Addivinola, a Republican, who massased in the neighborhood of 19,000 votes – or 32 percent.
As noted by the Associated Press via the Huffington Post, Clark could be sworn in as early as Thursday of this week, becoming just the fifth woman elected from Massachusetts to serve in the House. She joins the likes of trailblazers Edith Nourse Rogers, Margaret Heckler, Louise Day Hicks, and most recently Niki Tsongas.
The Boston Globe took a stab at recording the voter turnout Tuesday night, suggesting that just 13 percent of District 5 made it out to the polls. Prior to last night’s dismal showing, the lowest turnout was “October 2001 special election that Stephen F. Lynch won with a 17 percent turnout.”
But one could argue that a low turnout was to be expected. Looking back at the special election’s primary earlier in October, Galvin predicted 120,000 Democratic and 20,000 Republican voters would cast a ballot only to find that just 69,525 left-wingers and 9,692 people from the right made it out.
“We had a message that resonated,” Clark said of her win to the AP. “It’s time for Congress to get back to work for families.”
Her chief opponent, Frank Addivinola, is a modern day polymath with higher-educational degrees in the likes of law, biotechnology, tech management, topped off with a MBA.
But with all of his accolades and achievements, Addivinola was unable to surpass the fundraising prowess of Clark, who took in over $1 million through November 20 compared to his mere $38K, or her big-name endorsements from the likes of California Representative Nancy Pelosi, Massachusetts Senators Markey and Elizabeth Warren, and Attorney General and gubernatorial hopeful Martha Coakley.
