FIRST-TIME VOTER Connor Aalto, a college student, was among the 31% of North Reading’s registered voters to participate in the Super Tuesday Presidential Primary election. The poll workers gave Connor a round of applause when he picked up his ballot in Precinct 3. (Maureen Doherty Photo)

 

By MAUREEN DOHERTY

NORTH READING — As North Reading goes, so goes the state, and apparently, the nation.

The town’s voters overwhelmingly backed the front runners of both parties on Super Tuesday setting up a rematch between the 46th president, Joseph R. Biden, and the 45th president, Donald J. Trump.

North Reading’s Democrats cast 1,269 votes for Biden while the Republicans cast 1,408 votes for Trump. The only rival still remaining in the race on the Republican slate, Nikki Haley – formerly the governor of South Carolina and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under Trump – received 816 votes locally.

Those voting no preference on the Republican ticket numbered just 24 to the 128 Democrats who chose that option. The other candidates whose names remained on the ballots of both parties   after they disbanded their campaigns based on poor showings in earlier primaries each received a scant number of vote.

According to the AP, 83 percent of the Democratic presidential primary votes in Massachusetts went to Biden and the margin of victory between Trump and Haley was nearly 60–40 percent. Since Trump garnered more than 50 percent of his party’s vote in Massachusetts, under MassGOP Party rules he will be granted all of the delegates’ votes come November.

According to Town Clerk Susan Duplin, 31 percent of the town’s 12,458 registered voters cast ballots, in person on Election Day, by Early Voting or absentee ballot or my mail-in ballot.

 

 

AT YOUR SERVICE. Election worker (and former town treasurer) Josephine Doherty checks voter Maria Spina into Precinct 2 on Election Day. Nearly 3,900 voters participated in the Super Tuesday Presidential Primary. (Maureen Doherty Photo)

 


First Essex and Middlesex District

The down-ballot races for State Committeeman and State Committeewoman were the only other races locally in this election.

The communities in the First Essex and Middlesex District mirror the state Senate district of Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester). For State Committeeman in the Republican Party, North Reading had two candidates, Michael Scarlata and Jeff Yull. The third candidate was Clayton R. Sova of Gloucester.

The town’s unofficial results gave Yull the victory over Scarlata 1,125–763 while Sova was a distant third at 93.

However, district-wide the unofficial results had a much tighter race between Sova (6,340) and Scarlata (6,125) with Yull in third (5,428). In the four-way race for Republican State Committee Woman, unofficially the district winner was Lisa-Marie C. Cashman of Ipswich over Ashley Sullivan, Cynthia C. Bjorlie and Nicole Coles, all of whom reside in Gloucester. These overall results were provided to the newspaper by the Scarlata campaign as the official district-wide results were not available at press time.

Among North Reading’s Republican primary voters, the candidates received the following vote tallies: Sullivan (709), Cashman (631), Bjorlie (182) and Coles (142).

The Democrats fielded just one candidate in both seats with the locals voting for Matthew C. Murray of Gloucester (1,1890) and Carla Carol Christensen (1,205).

On Wednesday morning, Haley announced that she was officially suspending her campaign.

 

GETTING OUT THE VOTE! An enthusiastic supporter of former President Trump’s re-election bid greeted passersby on Super Tuesday outside the town’s centralized polling location at St. Theresa’s on Winter Street. Sign holders were otherwise sparse during the afternoon showers. (Maureen Doherty Photo)