By: Breanne Kovatch, Amanda Kaufman, Kaylie Felsberg and Isabel Contreras
After a day of voting in Boston, it became clear that Josh Zakim and Mark Ciommo — two incumbent city councilors — would be keeping their City Council seats for the next two years in District 8 and 9, respectively.
Both incumbents won their races with at least a 20 percent lead over their opponents. Zakim, whose district includes Back Bay, Fenway, Kenmore Square and Beacon Hill, drew in 3,995 total votes and Ciommo, whose district is Allston and Brighton, gathered 4,672 votes overall.
Four at-large City Council positions were filled by incumbents Michelle Wu, Michael Flaherty, Ayanna Pressley and Annissa Essaibi-George, along with the local district council positions, according to information provided by the election department. Districts 3, 4, 5 and 6 saw their incumbents run unopposed, while Districts 1, 2 and 7 switched to new councilor positions.
This year’s City Council will be the most diverse Boston has had, according to a tweet by At-Large City Councilor Ayanna Pressley.
In District 8, Zakim won around 67 percent of the vote in his area, or about 2060 votes more than his competitor, Kristen Mobilia. This will be his third term as City Councilor, after being re-elected to his second term unopposed.
Ethan Mandelcorn, Zakim’s campaign manager, told The Daily Free Press having a strong group of volunteers supporting Zakim’s campaign and showing what he is capable of through his incumbency, helped secure his win.
“He’s shown that he’s capable of handling this position for the last four years,” Mandelcorn said. “Because of that, because he’s shown what he can do, he’s shown that he’s a good candidate, he can do his job well.”
One supporter said at an election night party Zakim has supported her since she has moved to Boston from New York and that he supports others as well, which is why she voted for him.
“[He makes] sure that really everybody has a home here, especially with everything that’s going on in Washington,” said Gabby Goldstein, 29, of Back Bay. “I think that’s more important than ever and he represents a pretty diverse district in terms of socioeconomic class, and I think he really looks out for everybody.”
In District 9, Ciommo won his seventh term as city councilor with around 61 percent of the vote in his district and 1,750 more votes than his competitor, Brandon Bowser.
Ciommo told The Daily Free Press running against Bowser allowed him to be able to reach out to the community again in a way he is not often able to on City Council.
“[This election] gave me the ability to reach out and get my message across again and I’m very happy,” Ciommo said. “There are a lot of things going on in our neighborhood, we have a lot of great things, but we also have a lot of challenges. I think we all got our message out that it is important to be involved we need everybody’s eyes and hears and participation.”
Kelly McGrath, 47, of Brighton, said she supports Ciommo because he is from Brighton and takes care of people within his district.
“Whenever I would call him up on certain issues, whether it be speeding or construction, he is on top of it and responds himself,” McGrath said. “He doesn’t have anyone else respond and I like that about him.”
After conceding to Ciommo over the phone, Bowser said at an election night party he was encouraged by Ciommo’s willingness to continue dialogue and engage young people in the conversation.
Despite losing the race, Bowser told The Daily Free Press he will continue to engage in conversations about the future of the district and communicate the concerns of residents, which he started in his campaign.
“I’m going to try to take the connections and the momentum that we’ve had and try to plug more people in and continue that conversation,” Bowser said. “It’s never been about me, it’s about the neighborhood and the community and the issues.”
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Maybe if Alianza Latina and other groups on-campus had advertised the elections and encouraged their members to go vote the voter turnout would’ve been higher than 22% and Bowser would have won. Instead, groups decided to advertise for candidates in other states who share some aspect of their identity with groups on campus (usually racial background). If we don’t start caring about the community our school is in, we might as well not have student groups in my opinion.