Scrambling for last-minute votes, candidates seeking to fill Secretary of State John Kerry’s former senate seat had to deal with low voter turnout during the primary election on Tuesday.
The Boston Marathon bombings put campaigning for the primary on hold and gave candidates less time to put out advertisements and get their platforms across to potential voters. The change of pace was likely a reason that a mere 66,009 people voted in Boston, according to Boston city figures.
Among the nominees were U.S. Reps. Stephen Lynch and Ed Markey on the Democratic ballot. On the Republican ticket was former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan, businessman Gabriel Gomez and Mass. Rep. Daniel Winslow. Markey and Gomez won the primary for their respective parties Wednesday.
Douglas Kriner, a political science professor at Boston University, said the most politically engaged people vote in special elections.
“Turnout in special elections is much lower than even in off-year elections, let alone in presidential election years,” Kriner said. “If you looked at the demographics of the electorate in a special elective versus the electorate in a presidential election year, the electorate would probably be more highly educated, wealthier and more white.”
Kriner said low voter turnout could be advantageous for certain candidates.
“This is one of the factors that significantly helped Scott Brown win the special election even though he then lost solid to Elizabeth Warren two years later,” he said.
Some residents came to the Boston Public Library to cast their vote during the primary on Wednesday.
Meghan Marcella, 34, a resident of Quincy, said although she is a Democrat, she chose to vote Republican for this election.
“I am voting for Mike Sullivan because, although I’m socially liberal, I think we need to be financially conservative and I feel like the governments been so fiscally irresponsible lately,” she said. “It’s not that I’m against welfare, it’s just that things are not being tracked … sometimes benefits are so rich that people have no incentive to work.”
Marcella said she does not blame people for staying on welfare when they can make just as much as someone working a minimum wage job.
“We are losing the American dream,” she said. “We need to focus on creating jobs and having rewards for people who are hard-working. I know someone who’s on unemployment and wants to get a part-time job, but he would lose his benefits. That is so backwards, so I was focusing on the Republican party and Mike Sullivan has really impressed me.”
John Harris, 70, said he voted for Markey even though he has problems with both Democratic nominees.
“I think he’s [Markey] got a broader perspective, and I think Lynch is too narrowly focused,” he said. “I’ve had issues with both of them.
Harris said he cannot expect any candidate to be perfect, but does not think Lynch is up for the job.
“Lynch is good as a congressman, but I just don’t think he has a broad enough perspective on life to be a senator,” he said.
Bernard Greene, 47, a resident of Back Bay and a detective at the Boston Police Department, said he identified with Lynch’s former struggles and professional aspirations.
“Stephen Lynch is very similar to me if you’ve ever seen those commercials on TV that he went to school at night, I did the same thing I went to school at off hours, I grew up in public housing, and I went to law school, so I identify with him,” Greene said.
Greene said he was focused on figuring out the differences between the two Democratic nominees when he was making his decision.
“I was concerned with term limits, which I know is an old subject, but it rears its ugly head now, years and years later since Markey declared that he was negotiating term limits, so that defines the primary thing for me,” he said.
Peter Forbes, a 58-year-old resident from Quincy who works at the Boston Children’s Hospital, said he decided to vote for Markey after reading about him in a newspaper.
“I am voting for Markey because I read an editorial in the [Boston] Globe that endorsed him and it sounded pretty strong,” he said. “They didn’t say anything bad about Lynch, but Markey seems much more accomplished and had been around much longer, and had done much more, so it sounded right to me.”
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