Editor’s note: As of 9:35 a.m. Sept. 7, Paul Heroux has won the Democratic primary for Bristol County Sheriff.
Just one out of every 10 legislators on Beacon Hill is facing a primary challenge this year. On the South Coast, the only state lawmakers with contested primaries cruised to easy victories on Tuesday night.
State Rep. Bill Straus, a Mattapoisett Democrat who has been in office since 1993, defeated local businessman Rick Trapilo. Straus will be facing a Republican challenger in November.
Incumbent State Rep. Chris Markey, the son of a former New Bedford mayor, defeated Cameron Costa, a 21-year-old challenger who had the backing of the state’s largest labor unions. Markey, a Democrat from Dartmouth, finished with more than 70% of the vote. With no Republican challenger on November’s ballot, Markey is expected to retain his seat in Bristol’s 9th District.
But even in deep blue Massachusetts, voters have a longstanding tendency of balancing their heavily Democratic legislature and Congressional delegation with a Republican governor.
Following Republican Gov. Charlie Baker’s decision not to run for re-election, Maura Healey, the state’s popular Democratic attorney general, could break that trend come November. If she wins, Healey would become the country’s first openly lesbian governor.
Healey is now running in the general election against Geoff Diehl, a former state legislator who defeated a more moderate Republican rival, Chris Doughty, in Tuesday’s primary.
Diehl, who has repeated former president Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, ran with Trump’s endorsement and hired his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, as an adviser. If elected, Diehl has promised to rehire state employees who were terminated for refusing to comply with Gov. Baker’s vaccine mandate.
Tuesday’s ballot also included a pair of elections for offices with significant influence over how law enforcement is administered in Bristol County, which includes the cities of Fall River, New Bedford, Taunton and Attleboro.
In the race for Bristol County District Attorney, incumbent Tom Quinn won re-election by a wide margin. His challenger, Shannon McMahon, worked briefly as a prosecutor alongside Quinn. She had promised to bring more transparency to the office, including in cases of fatal police shootings.
Attleboro Mayor Paul Heroux, who previously worked as an administrator in the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, declared victory shortly before midnight in a tightly contested Democratic primary against George McNeil, a retired police chief from Somerset, and Nick Bernier, a lawyer in Fall River who worked briefly as a Bristol County prosecutor.
So far, all of Bristol County’s cities have reported their election results, leaving Heroux with a commanding 3,500-vote lead over second-place Bernier. A handful of smaller towns are still counting votes.
Heroux is expected to advance to the general election, where he will challenge incumbent sheriff Thomas Hodgson to his first contested re-election in more than a decade. Hodgson, who has managed the county’s jails for 25 years, ran unopposed in the Republican primary.
Click here for more details on the results of the Sept. 6 Massachusetts primary election.
