The Gardner News (subscription only) is reporting that Robert Rice has won the 2nd Worcester special election primary. I don’t have the final vote counts, but the percentages are:
Robert Rice (45%)
Michael Ellis (33%)
Michael McCallum (22%)
I’ll update this post as soon as detailed results are available.
Update: The Globe is reporting different percentages.
Rice (57%)
Ellis (43%)
Jeez, the Globe didn’t mention McCallum at all.
I still haven’t been able to track down actual vote count.
Please share widely!
The only things I know about Rice are that he’s a lawyer, he’s in favor of the House Health Care plan, and that he had union backing in this race. Anyone know anything else?
What I know is kind of sketchy, but basically here’s how the candidates were positioned:
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Ellis is the very conservative Democrat who would have continued mostly in Knuuttila’s footsteps, except that he would’ve voted against the marriage amendment.
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McCallum is the progressive, who didn’t off to a fast enough start to secure all the progressive support he needed.
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Rice is the middle ground compromise candidate, who seems to lean conservative to me, but who many often-progressive organizations (such as SEIU) saw as a viable candidate who would be much better than Ellis.