Election results are mundane, if not numbingly boring, to most people. But political junkies, like yours truly, love to dive deep into them and read the proverbial tea leaves.
That’s exactly what I did this week with the numbers from Tuesday’s Democratic primary election for the Massachusetts House of Representatives 19th Suffolk District.
Jeffrey Turco, a Winthrop resident who was raised in Revere, won the election — but not by much. Turco received 36.2 percent of the vote with Revere’s Juan Jaramillo a close second with 30 percent.
Trump supporter Turco’s politics contrasted sharply with immigrant and labor organizer Jaramillo’s policy positions. He faces a Republican and an independent candidate in the March 30 election.
But it’s the numbers that tell the story in Turco’s win — not vote percentages or political positions. Revere has solidly embraced Democrats in past elections, but attend a City Council meeting and you will get a taste of the city’s right-of-center tendencies.
Turco’s 1,706-vote victory was cemented by a 1,331-vote win in Winthrop. But Alicia DelVento of Winthrop lost the town by 227 votes to Turco. By contrast, Jaramillo handily beat Turco in Revere.
Again, it’s the numbers that write the bottom line: Turco pulled 1,331 votes out of Winthrop. But Jaramillo pulled a significantly smaller number out of Revere — 920.
If DelVento and Valentino Capobianco had not been in the primary, Jaramillo still would not have pulled enough votes out of his hometown to catch up to Turco.
I haven’t seen former House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo quoted concerning Tuesday’s special election. But DeLeo, who represented Revere and Winthrop for more than four decades, knows how Jaramillo feels.
DeLeo won the seat in 1990, two years after losing to then-state Rep. Alfred E. Saggese. In what must have been a stinging defeat, DeLeo not only lost Winthrop, where he had strong political credentials, to Saggese but Saggese beat him by barely 100 votes.
Some analysts will suggest Jaramillo might have won if the special election had pitted only him against Turco. That conclusion ignores Massachusetts political reality.
Turco hit the campaign trail “loaded for bear,” as my dear old dad would say. His credentials included Democratic State Committee and state party work and he was a former aide to the late William Reinstein, whose name is still uttered reverentially in Revere.
He was also an aide to Guy Glodis, a political veteran who managed Turco’s campaign. There’s no question Jaramillo — arguably, in some ways, the new face of Revere — brought strong credentials to the race as a former budget director for state Sen. Joseph Boncore.
But getting elected in a district like the 19th posed challenges different from many other races. DeLeo “was our rep” in the minds of most district voters who were probably surprised to find themselves receiving campaign literature for a special election literally weeks after the holiday season rather than the traditional fall campaign season.
In addition — as DeLeo learned — putting together a winning campaign in a district composed of two communities each with a ton of hometown pride is no easy feat.
To win on Tuesday, Jaramillo needed to tally up the second-highest vote total among the four candidates, not the third highest, with a win in Revere. His 920 Revere votes placed him third behind DelVento’s 1,104 Winthrop votes and Turco’s 1,331 tally in Winthrop.
With the special election scheduled for March 30, Turco appears headed to the Statehouse. But Jaramillo can take pride in finishing second on Tuesday. He learned firsthand (as did Turco with his poor Revere finish) how hard it is to win a district representing two proud communities where hometown allegiances run deep.
You can conclude Turco won as a Republican in Democratic clothing, but he also won because he put together the numbers and Jaramillo had difficulty making them add up for him.