MALDEN. Malden voters cast 11,766 ballots in the November 3 state election, 30.1 percent of the city’s 39,032 registered voters, and gave every Democrat on the ballot every one of the city’s 27 precincts. Senator Edward J. Markey took 8,462 votes, 72 percent of all ballots cast, and the ticket of Governor Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll took 8,168, 69 percent. The city rejected Question 5, the state revenue limit, in 25 of 27 precincts, approved the single-family-homes question that Saugus had turned down, and chose James Bancroft Perry over Sean M. Salazar for the Malden seat on the Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational School Committee. The figures below come from the city clerk’s four-page preliminary results sheet, labeled “STATE ELECTION NOV. 2026 PRELIMINARY RESULTS,” and are unofficial until certified.
Turnout: Ward 5 high, Wards 4, 7 and 8 low
Turnout varied by 18 points across the city. Precinct 5-2, with 1,924 registered voters, produced the most ballots, 790, and the highest rate, 41 percent. Precinct 3-1A followed at 40.6 percent (378 of 932) and Precinct 3-1 at 36.2 percent (325 of 897). At the other end, Precinct 8-2 turned out 23.2 percent (429 of 1,852), Precinct 4-1 24 percent (389 of 1,624) and Precinct 7-2 24.7 percent (391 of 1,584).
By ward, Ward 5 led at 34.5 percent (1,850 of 5,364 registered), followed by Ward 3 at 33.7 percent (1,800 of 5,346), Ward 6 at 30.9, Ward 2 at 30.6 and Ward 1 at 30.1. Ward 7 was at 26.9 percent (1,219 of 4,526), Ward 4 at 26.7 (1,158 of 4,333) and Ward 8 at 26.4 (1,341 of 5,070). Ward 6 has the largest voter roll, 5,367, and Ward 4 the smallest, 4,333. Lynn, by comparison, turned out 34 percent of its voters the same night, Salem 50 percent and Beverly 62 percent.
Senate: Markey by 5,893
Markey beat John Deaton 8,462 to 2,569, with 188 votes for Shiva Ayyadurai, 342 for Joe Tache, 16 write-ins and 189 blanks. Markey won every precinct. His widest margins were in Precinct 5-2 (549 to 188) and Precinct 4-3 (380 to 51); his narrowest were in the two small Ward 7 precincts, 7-3A (132 to 35) and 7-3 (189 to 63). Deaton’s best raw totals came in 5-2 (188), 8-1 (161) and 6-3 (159).
Governor and the rest of the state ticket
Healey and Driscoll beat Mike Minogue and Kate Oliver 8,168 to 2,911, with 424 votes for the James and Kittredge ticket, 17 write-ins and 246 blanks. The Republican ticket’s best precinct was 5-2, where it drew 206 votes to Healey’s 538; it did not come within 90 votes of the governor anywhere.
Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell beat Michael C. Walsh 8,377 to 2,938, with 437 blanks. Secretary of State William Francis Galvin beat Anne R. Brensley 9,018 to 2,299, the largest raw vote of any candidate on the Malden ballot. Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg beat Elizabeth Dionne 8,321 to 2,856, with 562 blanks. Auditor Diana DiZoglio beat Al Ozonoff 9,190 to 1,342, the widest margin of the night, though 1,151 voters left the auditor’s line blank and 83 wrote in a name, both the highest of any contested statewide race.
Congress and the Legislature: no contests, many blanks
Representative Katherine M. Clark, unopposed in the Fifth Congressional District, received 8,979 votes; 2,381 voters left the line blank and 406 wrote in a name. Governor’s Councillor Terrence W. Kennedy, unopposed in the Sixth District, received 8,831 with 2,643 blanks. State Senator Kate Lipper-Garabedian, unopposed in the Fifth Middlesex District, received 8,833 with 2,645 blanks and 288 write-ins. District Attorney Marian T. Ryan, unopposed, received 8,888.
Malden is divided among three House districts, and none was contested except one. In the Thirty-third Middlesex District, which covers 18 of the city’s precincts, Representative Steven Ultrino received 6,028 votes with 1,634 blanks and 188 write-ins on 7,850 ballots. In the Thirty-fifth Middlesex District, which takes in Precincts 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 3-3, 3-1A, 7-1 and 7-3A, Representative Paul J. Donato beat James C. Seibel 2,151 to 442, winning each of the seven precincts; his closest was 7-3A, 133 to 29, and his widest 1-3, 411 to 95. In the Thirty-second Middlesex District, which reaches into Malden only in Precincts 5-2 and 5-3A, Leila Bhatti Migliorelli, unopposed, received 762 votes on 1,073 ballots, with 287 blanks.
In the race for Register of Probate for Middlesex County, Tara E. DeCristofaro beat Tara Martorella 8,119 to 1,539, carrying every precinct.
The vocational school seat
The one contested local race was Malden’s seat on the Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational School Committee, the board of the Wakefield vocational high school, which Saugus and the district’s other member communities also voted on. Perry beat Salazar in Malden 4,792 to 3,249, 60 percent of the two-candidate vote, with 138 write-ins and 3,587 blanks. Salazar won a single precinct, 5-3A, by nine votes (106 to 97) and tied Perry 91 to 91 in Precinct 5-3. Perry’s widest margins were in Precincts 2-3 (271 to 114) and 2-2 (215 to 100). In Saugus, Perry won the same race 4,219 to 2,443.
The ballot questions
Malden had nine statewide questions and a tenth that appeared only on the ballots in Precincts 5-2 and 5-3A, the two precincts in the Thirty-second Middlesex District. Questions 1 through 8 were laws proposed by initiative petition and Question 9 was a referendum on the 2024 firearms law, on which a yes vote kept the law.
Question 1, extending the public records law to the Legislature and the governor’s office, passed 9,616 to 1,363, 88 percent yes, the strongest result on the ballot and a yes in every precinct. Question 2, collective bargaining rights for Committee for Public Counsel Services staff, passed 8,342 to 2,691, 76 percent. Question 3, replacing party primaries with a single primary, failed 3,865 to 7,278 and lost all 27 precincts. Question 4, election day voter registration, passed 7,690 to 3,501, 69 percent, and carried every precinct; it failed in Saugus the same night.
Question 5, which changes the state revenue limit and the taxpayer rebate, failed 4,858 to 6,346, 43 percent yes. It lost 25 of 27 precincts, passing only in Precinct 7-3 (133 to 107) and Precinct 8-3 (178 to 167). Saugus, Lynn and Winthrop approved it; Salem and Melrose rejected it. Question 6, a natural resource conservation fund, passed 7,458 to 3,726, 67 percent, and won every precinct. Question 7, on single-family homes, passed 7,215 to 3,815, 65 percent, and won every precinct, while Saugus rejected it and Winthrop decided it by a single vote.
Question 8, which would have banned the retail sale of adult recreational marijuana, failed 2,811 to 8,372, 25 percent yes, and lost every precinct; its best showing was 152 to 368 in Precinct 1-3. Question 9 kept the 2024 firearms law, 8,322 to 3,090, 73 percent yes, winning every precinct. Question 10, on the ballot only in Precincts 5-2 and 5-3A, passed 632 to 170 with 269 blanks; the clerk’s sheet gives the tally but not the text of the question.
The sheet records 11,766 ballots for the candidate races and Questions 1 through 4, but 11,776 for Questions 5 through 8 and 11,769 for Question 9, small differences it does not explain.
What the map says
There was no Republican precinct in Malden. The two small Ward 7 precincts, 7-3 and 7-3A, gave the Democrats their narrowest margins and were the only places to approve the revenue cap. Precinct 5-2 was the busiest precinct in the city and the best for every Democrat in raw votes, and also the best for Deaton, Minogue and Walsh, a function of size rather than lean. Across the city, voters said yes to open records, same-day registration, the conservation fund, the single-family-homes question and the firearms law, and no to a single primary, the revenue cap and a marijuana sales ban.
The Malden City Council meets Tuesday, November 10, with a public hearing on the residential tax exemption and a vote to move $11.17 million of free cash into reserves on the agenda. The clerk’s preliminary results sheet is here. Earlier results coverage: Saugus, Lynn, Salem and Winthrop.
