For all the talk of a silver lining talk in 2010 for the MA GOP in building the House, this past election shows the party once again regressing on Beacon Hill.
The state Senate yielded no net gains. Democrats were able to keep vacated seats.
The House on the other hand had a bunch of pickups for the Democratic party (net 4):
Pick up for Democrats
Jonathan Zlotnik (D) beat incumbent Richard Bastien (R)
Danielle Gregoire (D) beat incumbent Steven Levy (R)
Paul Heroux (D) beat incumbent George Ross (R)
Frank Moran (D) won. Incumbent: Paul Adams (R) ran for State Senate (and lost to Finegold).
Josh Cutler (D) won. Incumbent: Daniel Webster (R) didn’t run for re-election.
Pick up for Republicans
Harriett Stanley (D) didn’t run for re-election. Leonard Mirra (R) winner.
L’Italien is 130 votes behind Lyons according to the Globe.
she’s now 525 votes behind. It’s frustrating but that district is always going to be tough for Democrats. North Andover and Tewksbury tend to be red towns. Though it was nice to see Andover go for her.
…that we also picked up the 1st Governor’s Council district.
The 1st district is the Cipollini farce. The “Democrat” Oliver ran last time and his brother Charles ran against him as a Republican to eliminate any chance of real competition. But Charles (R) went around telling everyone to vote for Ollie (D). In the 2010 red wave of the Upper Cape, the “Republican” brother who didn’t want the job won.
This year, knowing Charles would be the GOP nominee, voters in the district very narrowly chose Ollie in a 3-way Dem primary to my great disappointment, setting up the “rematch.” Whether Dem turnout was better and folks voted party line, or Charlie the fake Republican did a better job of telling people to vote for his brother instead, I don’t know. But Ollie won.
At least the brother they both agree would be better for the job won the race. But don’t expect any substantive changes since they seem to agree on everything.
The House of Representatives “Project 54” is rechristened “Project 29.”
The MA GOP’s magic number was 54, they went for 19 to 33, so the idea was that it was plausible that they could hit 54 in this election. What, on Mitt’s coattails, ha. He couldn’t even win Belmont!
Forgive me:
What are the new (and old) Senate and House Dem-GOP numbers?
Senate stays the same, 36-4, and House goes up from 127-33 to 131-29. This is for Massachusetts. U.S. House is something like 233-192 with 10 not yet called and Senate 55-45, counting King of Maine as a Dem.
What we’re seeing here is (once again) the long overhang of Republicans–especially Repub. governors–not doing the hard work of party-building. From Weld in 1991 to Romney thru 2006 Republicans held the corner office and were notably disinterested in expanding their base, recruiting strong candidates, etc. etc.