And the Winners Are...

The Somerville News has the results from the Second Middlesex race. Pat Jehlen won a narrower than expected victory with a total of 7475 (56.5%) to Republican Bill White's 5762 (43.5%). White came very close in Somerville, losing the city by less than 500 votes. Jehlen pulled away, however, in Medford, Winchester and Woburn where White is a virtual unknown. Jehlen won nearly 60% of the vote outside of Somerville. Unless I read the Conventional Wisdom wrong, I was under the impression that those results would be reversed with Jehlen taking the more liberal Somerville rather easily (aside from White's neighborhood of course) and then they would fight it out in the suburbs. My guess is that the contested Democratic primary helped Jehlen boost her name recognition outside of Somerville and forced her to build an organization that could reach out to Medford and Winchester. Turnout, by the way, was less than reported in the August 30th primary.

The results for the Boston City Council preliminary election are also out. A couple of superficial things about the Boston races. First, it's interesting to note the split in votes between the top eight finishers and the bottom seven. Everyone who made the cut cleared 11,000 votes, and no one who didn't saw even half of that total. Also of note is that John Connolly polled higher -- by just shy of 200 votes -- than incumbent Stephen Murphy. Sam Yoon also has to be pleased, as he beat out the offspring of two former mayors and 2003 candidate Matt O'Malley.