Hours before the polls closed in Massachusetts on Tuesday, Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, flanked by bodyguards, strolled across Boylston Street to the entrance of the Boston Public Library where hundreds had already voted that day.
Once there, he was immediately surrounded by the dozens of sign-toting campaign supporters, voters and reporters who waited for his arrival.
Patrick sounded confident speaking to the group, dismissing questions from reporters about his main rival, Republican candidate Charlie Baker.
“Never mind the Baker campaign. . .I’m all done trying to respond to stuff from the Baker campaign,” Patrick said.
“What we’re doing and what we’re about is getting out the vote.”
Get out the vote they did. The Patrick campaign far outpaced Baker’s in the numbers game. With 97 percent of precincts reporting, the tally was 1,074,942 votes for Patrick and just 922,037 for Baker, a nearly 153,000-vote difference.
The vote differential was somewhat of a surprise given how close the governor’s race has been. Prior to election day, some polls reported Patrick clinging to a 1 percent lead over Baker.
Alex Goldstein, a spokesman for the Patrick campaign, noted the narrow lead, but remained optimistic.
“We always anticipated that this was going to be a close race and it should be close, it should be competitive. We expected it to be that way from day one,” he said.
“We had about 20,000 volunteers over the weekend and into today out there knocking on doors, lighting up the phone lines, doing every we can to bring out as many people as possible in these final hours. We’re feeling pretty good.”
Patrick reflected the work his campaign had done in the days leading up to the election, saying they were “taking absolutely nothing and no one for granted.”
“We’ve done all we can, and now it’s up to the voters,” he said.
Patrick also called out his opponents for strategically targeting areas of Massachusetts where they could get the most votes.
“They’ve targeted only certain communities and certain voters, but I have served as governor for the whole Commonwealth and I have campaigned for and to the whole Commonwealth,” Patrick said. “I’m looking at every single vote and every single community.”
Northeastern University student Erica Melito, 18, was one of Patrick’s supporters who waited, sign in hand, for the governor to show up at the library.
She said this was the first political campaign for which she was a volunteer. Melito said she got involved in the campaign because of her concern for what she though Baker would do to the Massachusetts education system.
“I’ve seen them go through cuts as it is, and I really can’t imagine why Charlie Baker wants to cut down state jobs,” she said.
“I really don’t think that we can pull from education. It’s already in bad shape as it is. Losing more teachers, that was a really big issue for me because I went to public high school.”
A political science major, Melito said she has tired to encourage other students to get involved in politics.
“For people who are angry, the main way to change things is to vote,” she said. “People fought to get voting rights, and in a lot of places people still don’t have voting rights.”
Tony Moneta, a Boston University senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, was another student supporter of Patrick.
He held a sign for one of Patrick’s Democratic allies, Marty Walz of the 8th Suffolk district, who won her re-election campaign against Republican candidate Brad Marston.
Moneta said he understood the apathy that students in Boston generally have shown toward in most election cycles.
“People should absolutely vote. . .it is important to make the extra effort. But I understand it’s hard for a lot of [out of state students] because they’re displaced, they’re not at home. It’s hard to stay connected, especially for local elections,” he said.
Compared to the support for Patrick, Baker’s supporters were few. At about 4:30 p.m., Brian Shortsleeve, 35, of Cape Cod was the only supporter present. He said the Baker campaign was excited for the conclusion of a long race.
Shortsleeve said his support for Baker stemmed from the Republican’s stance on reducing taxes during a difficult economy in Massachusetts. He cited the growth that New Hampshire, a state with much lower taxes than the Bay State, was experiencing.
“Their unemployment rate is two points behind ours, their debt to GDP is lower than ours, they’re creating jobs, they’re growing their population. We’re doing the opposite,” he said.
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