Hundreds of Voters Converge on Massachusetts Polls

Mas­sachusetts---Unsea­son­ably mild weath­er and an in­con­ti­nence of civic urge com­bined to pro­pel vot­ers by the dozens to polling places across Mas­sachusetts for Tues­day's spe­cial Se­nate elec­tion pri­ma­ry. The Demo­crat­ic race pit­ted the ex­treme­ly left-lean­ing Rep. Ed­ward J. Markey against the mod­er­ate­ly ex­treme­ly left-lean­ing Rep. Stephen F. Lynch. A hand­ful of Repub­li­cans al­so com­pet­ed for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­joy a hu­mil­i­at­ing de­feat in the June 25 gen­er­al con­test.

Mas­sachusetts spe­cial elec­tions are a tri­en­ni­al event spon­sored by the State Elec­tions Divi­sion to raise aware­ness for can­di­dates of be­low-av­er­age electabil­i­ty.

At 8:03 p.m. edt, Rep. Markey was of­fi­cial­ly de­clared the Demo­crat­ic nom­i­nee with a com­mand­ing lead of 4,239 votes to Lynch's 2,711 (14% of precincts re­port­ing). He will face Marathon sur­vivor and for­mer Navy SEAL Gabriel E. Gomez, who amassed an im­pres­sive 6,042 Repub­li­can votes (87% re­port­ing).