Berkshires Goes for Sanders, Trump
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — With the majority of precincts reporting in late Tuesday night, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were expected to post victories in their respective primaries in Massachusetts.
Trump, a New York billionaire developer, was far and away the winner in the Republican primary, with some 80 percent of precincts reporting he had scored nearly 49 percent of the vote.
But the biggest vote-getters by far in this very blue corner of a blue state were Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, who were polling at about 50 percent and 48 percent, respectively, late Tuesday.
Both did well in the Berkshires, with the Vermont U.S. senator seemingly able to cash in on both his message and the Northern Berkshires proximity to Vermont; Clinton won big here in 2008 over Barack Obama with the exception of Williamstown.
That story was different on Tuesday as Clinton outpolled her competitor in the Village Beautiful by a narrow 1,121 to 1,074, with longgone candidate Martin O'Malley grabbing four votes.
And Pittsfield handed Clinton a victory of 4,204 to 3,956, as did Lenox with 735 votes to Sanders' 640.
North Adams, however, saw Sanders poll 1,334 to Clinton's 953, and Clarksburg, on the Vermont border, also went Sanders by 140 to 125.
Sanders campaigned heavily in Western Massachusetts, appearing in the Springfield area three times since last October. He won throughout the Berkshires and Western and Central Massachusetts with fewer than a dozen towns and cities reporting in late Tuesday for Clinton.
But Clinton also took Springfield, where she appeared on Monday and gave a shoutout to Pittsfield about her visit there some 20 years ago to mark the beginning of the Colonial Theatre renovations. She also swept up Boston and most of its environs, giving her a boost of some 22,000 votes over Sanders by late Tuesday evening.
Trump's victory was far more decisive, taking nearly 49 percent of the state's Republican primary votes with his closest competitors, Marco Rubio and John Kasich, polling about 18 percent each. Ted Cruz was just below 10 percent.
Not suprisingly, Trump was victorious in the Berkshires as well, with only Alford and Mount Washington both falling in the Kasich column. Kasich, in fact, rose to second or third in a number of communities.
North Adams gave Trump 275 votes to Rubio's 106; Kasich got 77 and Cruz, 76. In the Williamstown, he took 123 votes to Rubio's 117; Kasich had 103 and Cruz, 50.
Clarksburg cast 59 votes for him, with Rubio second at 29; he also got 103 votes in Lenox and 249 in Adams, nearly three times the second place finisher Rubio, and 163 in Cheshire.
Pittsfield gave him 953 votes, with Rubio, Kasich and Cruz finishing in that order with polling in the 300s.
In all, the Republican column polled barely 1,000 votes in Pittsfield compared to the about 8,000 votes cast in the Democratic primary. In Clarksburg, the Democratic/Republican split was to 2-1
Voter turnout was predicted to be high in Massachusetts, and Lenox saw a 45 percent turnout for this primary election.
But there seemed to be few signs or supporters at the polling locations in North Berkshire.
Clarksburg had 37 percent voter turnout("Slow but steady," said Town Clerk Carol Jammalo) and Pittsfield, 38 percent. North Adams was a bit lower at about 27 percent.
Election worker Ron O'Brien at St. Elizabeth's Parish in North Adams, where Wards 1, 2, 3 and 5 are located, said the turnout had been slow on Tuesday afternoon.
"I opened at 7 a.m. and there were only two people," he said. "Usually there's a line at the door."
That wasn't the case in Williamstown, where more than 50 percent of the town's registered voters cast ballots on what Town Clerk Mary Kennedy described as "a very busy day."
Driving that record turnout was a town vote on a debt exclusion for a new Mount Greylock Regional School. That project polled more than any one candidate, passing 2,226-351.
For more in-depth results, see the Boston Globe's primary maps.
Tags: election 2016, primary,
