Lynnfield was the closest-divided town among those whose clerks posted results on election night. Of 6,303 ballots cast on November 3, the Minogue and Oliver ticket carried the town for governor, 3,215 to 2,921 for Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, and Michael C. Walsh outpolled Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell 3,273 to 2,843, while Senator Edward J. Markey held the town by 196 votes and three other contests were settled by fewer than 80, according to the town clerk’s unofficial results.
The town’s results sheet carries a caution worth repeating: the unofficial count includes only ballots run through the tabulators, hand counts and additional blanks, and excludes provisional ballots, write-in votes for named individuals and mail ballots still eligible to arrive after election day. Official results are expected no later than Wednesday, November 18. In a town where several races were this close, that reconciliation could move numbers.
The statewide races
Markey received 3,109 votes to 2,913 for John Deaton, 104 for Shiva Ayyadurai and 52 for Joe Tache, with 118 blanks. The governor’s race went 3,215 for Minogue and Oliver, 2,921 for Healey and Driscoll and 109 for James and Kittredge, a 294-vote margin for the challengers on 6,303 ballots, with only 56 blanks. For attorney general, Walsh’s 3,273 to Campbell’s 2,843 was a 430-vote margin, the widest Republican edge in town. Secretary of State William Francis Galvin, by contrast, won Lynnfield comfortably, 3,539 to 2,544 for Anne R. Brensley. Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg edged Elizabeth Dionne 3,061 to 2,982, a 79-vote margin. Auditor Diana DiZoglio beat Al Ozonoff 4,251 to 1,063, with 937 blanks, the one statewide race that was not close.
Fifteen votes for Congress
In the Sixth Congressional District race, Dan Koh received 3,036 Lynnfield votes to 3,021 for Micah Quinney Jones, a difference of 15 votes, with eight write-ins and 238 blanks. Precinct 4 went for Jones 856 to 709 on tabulated ballots, and the other three precincts leaned Koh, with the hand-counted ballots breaking his way in every precinct. The town’s total is one piece of a district that stretches across the North Shore and Merrimack Valley, and the district outcome is not asserted here.
The Legislature and the county
Senator Brendan Peter Crighton, unopposed in the Third Essex district, received 3,916 votes with 111 write-ins and 2,276 blanks. The House race on the Lynnfield ballot was contested: Joseph Markey received 3,412 votes to 2,569 for Trevor David Currier, 57 to 43 percent, with eight write-ins and 314 blanks, and Markey carried all four precincts. Governor’s Councillor Terrence W. Kennedy, unopposed, had 4,122. District Attorney Paul F. Tucker received 3,882 and Register of Probate Pamela Casey O’Brien 3,841, both unopposed, with more than 2,300 blanks in each race.
The ballot questions
Lynnfield split its questions five to five, counting the non-binding tenth. Question 1, the public records law, passed 5,197 to 880, 86 percent. Question 2, collective bargaining for public defenders, passed by 26 votes, 2,994 to 2,968, with 341 blanks, the closest result on the ballot. Question 3, the single primary, failed 2,317 to 3,769. Question 4, election day registration, failed 2,787 to 3,274, 46 to 54 percent, the only one of the four towns with posted results to reject it. Question 5, the revenue limit and rebate, passed 3,358 to 2,576, 57 to 43 percent, again the only yes among the four towns; Melrose, Medford and Somerville each rejected it by at least 61 percent. Question 6, the conservation fund, passed by 32 votes, 2,992 to 2,960. Question 7, single-family homes on small lots, failed 2,181 to 3,834, 36 to 64 percent. Question 8, the marijuana sales ban, failed 2,024 to 4,115, 33 to 67 percent, though the yes share was the highest of the four towns. Question 9, keeping the 2024 gun law, passed 4,059 to 2,070, 66 percent. Question 10, the non-binding stipend question, drew 3,894 yes to 1,190 no with 1,219 blanks.
What each question asked
Questions 1 through 8 were laws proposed by initiative petition: expanding the public records law to the Legislature and the governor’s office, collective bargaining for Committee for Public Counsel Services employees, a single state primary in place of party primaries, election day voter registration, a change to the state revenue limit and the rebate tied to it, a natural resource conservation fund, single-family homes on small lots, and a prohibition on the retail sale of adult-use marijuana. Question 9 was a referendum on the 2024 firearms law, so a yes vote kept the law. Question 10, on legislative stipends, was non-binding. The town’s sheet does not list registered voters, so a turnout percentage will have to wait for the certified results; the 6,303 figure is the number of ballot cards the tabulators counted plus the hand counts, and the sheet notes that a card not returned by a voter is recorded as an automatic blank for every contest on it.
By precinct
Precinct 4 was the town’s most Republican on election night, giving Minogue and Oliver 899 tabulated votes to 696 for Healey and Driscoll and Walsh 921 to 653 over Campbell, and it supplied the largest share of the town’s 6,303 ballots at 1,624 before hand counts. Precinct 2 was the most Democratic: Healey led there 768 to 730 on tabulated ballots, and the 44 hand-counted ballots in that precinct broke 24 to 19 her way. Hand counts, 106 in Precinct 1, 44 in Precinct 2, 30 in Precinct 3 and 18 in Precinct 4, favored the Democratic candidates in every precinct and in every statewide race.
The town’s unofficial results are posted on its election results page; the results sheet itself is here.
