MA-05: Tsongas Takes Narrow Victory, 35-32, over Donoghue

by: Matt Stoller

Tue Sep 04, 2007 at 19:17

( - promoted by Matt Stoller)

Well the election is happening today.

Turnout looks to be under 50,000, Donoghue is peaking, and voters are deciding based on advice from friends and family without any overriding ideological interests. This thread on Blue Mass Group is kind of interesting, though the race itself has been mostly boring. No candidate has really solidly captured a progressive block of voters; the Deval Patrick reformer types are somewhat behind Niki, while the identity progressives are somewhat behind Eldridge. Mostly this is a regional friends and family affair.

We'll see who wins in a few hours. It's probably Tsongas, though local Lowell favorite Donoghue could surprise with an upset. She's been running TV ads recently, she got a bunch of newspaper endorsements, and her negative framing of Tsongas has been successful. If anyone has momentum, it's Donoghue.

UPDATE: Here's Dick Howe, who has followed this race closely, discussing coverage from the Eagle Tribune.

Andover, Haverhill Lawrence and Methuen expect only 10%-15% of registered voters to show up and cast ballots in the 5th congressional district primary.

UPDATE 2 (Chris): Results can be found here.

With 191 of 195 precincts reporting, Tsongas leads 36%, Donoghue 32%, Eldridge 14%, Feingold 13%.
With 137 of 195 precincts reporting, it is Tsongas 36%, Donoghue 26%, Eldridge 17%, Feingold 16%.
With 80 of 195 precincts reporting, it is Tsongas 36%, Donoghue 26%, Eldridge 18%, Feingold 15%.
With 5 of 193 precincts reporting, Tsongas leads with 55%. Eldridge and Donahue have 28% and 12% respectively.

FINAL UPDATE: And it goes for Niki by a smaller than expected margin over Lowell machine candidate Eileen Donoghue.

Matt Stoller :: MA-05: Tsongas Takes Narrow Victory, 35-32, over Donoghue

Tags: MA-05, Jamie Eldridge, Niki Tsongas, Barry Finegold, Eileen Donoghue, (All Tags)

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MA-05: Tsongas Takes Narrow Victory, 35-32, over Donoghue | 1 comments

Poor Jamie Eldridge (0.00 / 0)

I volunteered for the Eldridge Campaign a good amount in the summer, but sensed that they were going to get spanked when they told me not to bother volunteering today because they had enough volunteers. (I live in Boston, about 20 miles from the district).

MA-05 is one of the more conservative districts in my state (which is less liberal than people give us credit for), but I'm still not sure why Jamie never caught fire: we had a weekly phone bank for Jamie in Boston, and never got more than 4 volunteers (and 0 to 2 was more typical).

I will blame the campaign somewhat: Jamie was the only candidate who favored single-payer health care, but rather than having people outside theaters which were showing SICKO (which I begged them to do), they had their volunteers knocking on doors of mostly empty houses on summer afternoons. Also, while Jamie was very progressive, his literature didn't emphasize the distinctions. For example, he's for defunding the war, but his lit didn't explicitly say this, so to the untrained eye he seemed to have the same position as pro-war-funding Tsongas. He also might've been able to energize the base had he come out in favor of impeachment, but that never happened.

Ban. A bunch of hours and cash down the drain. I really hope that this isn't a portent for 2008.

Oh, and congrats and good luck to the winner.

by: Cat Servant @ Wed Sep 05, 2007 at 02:49:13 AM UTC