Democrat Niki Tsongas beat out Republican Jim Ogonowski yesterday in an election to fill the vacant congressional seat in Massachusetts' fifth district.
Tsongas, the widow of the late U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas, squeaked out an electoral win with 51 percent of the votes, even though an early Associated Press report showed that her opponent had a lead.
"Tsongas is in Congress," Maryanne Argento told the Daily at 9:50 last night from the Tsongas headquarters.
Ogonowski, a retired air force colonel whose brother John was a pilot on one of the doomed Sept. 11 flights, had good early returns, but his numbers slipped and he ended up with around 45 percent of the votes. The remaining four percent went to other candidates.
The fifth district seat was vacated in July when Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) left Congress to take over as the chancellor of UMass Lowell. With Tsongas' victory there, the Democrats still maintain complete control over the Bay State's congressional delegation.
The fifth district consists of 29 Massachusetts towns, including Lawrence, Andover and Lowell along the Merrimack River Valley and extends down into Groton, Harvard and Lancaster.
Polling there began yesterday at 7 a.m. and lasted until 8 p.m., but because it was a special election voter turnout was not particularly high as of mid-afternoon.
"It is definitely less than during presidential elections," said Jeanne Reynolds, the warden for the eighth precinct in Methuen.
But according to Betty Small, a clerk for Methuen's 11th precinct, participation was still higher than in the primary last month.
She also said that she was expecting to be busier later in the day.
"The people between 30-35 you usually don't see until later, when the canes and the walkers are gone," she said.
The race received national media coverage after polls close to yesterday's election showed Ogonowski within nine points of Tsongas. The last time a Republican representative was elected to the seat was in 1972, so national pundits held out hope of a turnover.
Junior Dan Hartman, president of the Tufts Republicans, said Ogonowski's close polling in the days leading up to the election showed a discontent with the politics in Congress. "Massachusetts voters are tired with Congress now," said Hartman. "They see Jim as a common man."
Democrats were worried too, according to Political Science Professor Jeffrey Berry.
"They were a little anxious about it because Ogonowski proved to be a more capable candidate than they anticipated," he said.
The Tufts Democrats were also aware of this concern. The group's president, senior Courtney Houston-Carter, said he received a personal phone call from Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) asking for election-day help for Tsongas.
"In the past 24 hours many of the college leaders have received calls from [Sen. Ted] Kennedy, Pelosi and Kerry," he said. "We understand the importance of this race."
As a result, Houston-Carter said an impromptu group of roughly a dozen Tufts students took cars and the commuter rail up to Lowell to help work the phones, canvass and get out the vote.
Hartman, a junior, said that the competitiveness of the race bodes well for the GOP.
"I think that the fact that a Republican can lose by six points in such a heavily Democrat district shows a trend against Congress and it shows extreme disappointment in the way Congress is being handled," he said.
Still, the result was not entirely uplifting.
"It's somewhat of a moral victory, but there's still disappointment," he said.
Like the Tufts Democrats, Hartman's group also made calls on behalf of its candidate, although none of its members were able to make it up to the district yesterday.
Still, he said that Ogonowski had plenty of support.
"People are coming from all over the state to help in this tight race," Hartman said before the election was called for Tsongas.
During the election cycle, Tsongas ran on a platform of bringing troops home from Iraq, establishing universal health care and rolling back President Bush's tax cuts.
Meanwhile, Ogonowski distanced himself from Bush on immigration and Iraq and attacked a Congress that he said was not satisfactorily representing the public.
Still, he supported Bush's tax cuts and hoped to extend them past their current expiration date.
Sophomore Will Ehrenfeld, one of the members of the Tufts Democrats who traveled to Lowell, said he was happy with the outcome of the election.
"This is such an important race because it keeps Massachusetts [entirely] Democratic," he said. "Tsongas is for all the right things."
