Tufts' own Suzanne Bremer will face incumbent Mayor Joseph Curtatone in Somerville's mayoral election today.
Voter results from the Sept. 25 primary election show strong voter loyalty and continued support for the incumbent, who received 76.5 percent of the 6,164 votes. First elected in Nov. 2003, Curtatone is running for his third term.
Bremer, who was able to claim a spot in today's election with the 13.4 percent of the vote - the most after Curtatone - is a newcomer to Somerville's political arena.
In facing an established figure, Bremer, the project coordinator at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts, understands the difficulty of her position.
"It's an uphill battle," she said. "He's been in office for four years; he was an alderman before that. He's part of the system."
According to Dan Hoffer, Curtatone's campaign manager, Curtatone is putting forth the same effort he has in previous elections despite his success in the primary.
"We're taking things very seriously," he said. "We're going to have people at every precinct. [It's a] full-scale election-day operation, as if this were Joe's first race."
Curtatone's campaigning strategy includes both house and phone calls.
"Joe goes door to door himself [and] we've made at least 20,000 phone calls since early September," Hoffer said.
Bremer has employed a similar strategy. "I've been going door to door talking to people about the issues that I think are important to Somerville: financial responsibility, the need to improve our school system and the need for a radical approach to development."
Somerville's school system is a personally relevant issue for Bremer, who has a seven-year-old son. Her discovery that the schools could no longer afford to hire teaching aids served as the impetus for her mayoral campaign.
After conducting research, Bremer attributes the financial problems of the city to money that is thrown down the drain in the form of unnecessary rent payments.
"Our long-term debt increased by $5.2 million last year," she said.
Hoffer refuted this criticism and questioned Bremer's credibility.
"Ms. Bremer's assertions about us misusing funds are contradicted by the facts, and they reveal her lack of understanding of the city's recent history and of its well-designed and well-publicized public agenda," he said.
While school improvements may be Bremer's top priority, she said she learned during campaigning that housing costs are of utmost concern to Somerville's citizens.
"It's the No. 1 issue that people talk about with me," she said. "Housing costs are [currently] sky-high."
Bremer believes it is possible to increase the amount of affordable housing.
"The current standard for new development in Somerville is to set aside 12 percent of the new units in a housing development for affordable housing, and I think that can be easily increased to 15 percent," she said.
She also advocates for a more comprehensive approach.
"The current administration takes a project-by-project, square-by-square approach to development," she said. "They do the easy stuff first, and they put off the really tough stuff."
Though the odds may not be in her favor, Bremer is hopeful that the official election will draw a larger number of voters.
"You never know who's going to show up to vote," she said.
Hoffer, however, doubts the election will show any dramatic variation from the primary.
"I think you'll see something similar to the primary," he said. "What I'm seeing out there in the field is that Joe has a lot of support out there. We're not counting Suzanne out, but am I optimistic? Yeah I'm cautiously optimistic."
Regardless of the results of today's election, Bremer said she plans to continue to pursue a political career.
"This is for the long haul. This is the beginning for me."
Giovanni Russonello contributed reporting to this article.
