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NEW BEDFORD — City voters went the way of Massachusetts and most states that were holding primary contests on Tuesday, delivering decisive wins for President Joseph R. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump in their pursuits of the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations.
With 14.6% of nearly 68,000 registered voters casting ballots by mail, early voting and on a cool and rainy Election Day, Biden won 76% and Trump 79%, according to results released by the New Bedford Board of Election Commissioners.
Biden competitors Dean Phillips, a Minnesota congressman, and Marianne Williamson, a self-help book writer, split nearly 11% of the vote. Trump’s closest rival, former South Carolina Governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, won 18%.
The Republican contest was a bit closer in the state as a whole, as Trump was leading Haley 60% to 37% early Wednesday morning, according to the Boston Globe. Statewide, Biden won 83%, as Phillips and Williamson split 7.9%, the Globe reported.
In New Bedford, as in statewide balloting, Biden’s strongest single competitor was “No Preference,” a protest vote reflecting in large part dissatisfaction with Biden’s position on Israel’s conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza. In New Bedford, nearly 10% of Democratic ballots, and in Massachusetts nearly 9%, were marked “No Preference.”
Democratic city voters also elected a State Committee Man, Charles C. Motta, who defeated Leon Emanuel Correy III, nearly 61% to 39%, and State Committee Woman Lisa M. Lemieux, a labor advocate, who ran unopposed.
Republican voters elected State Committee Man and Woman contenders who each ran unopposed: Robert S. McConnell, a Plymouth County deputy sheriff, and Jo-Anne Mello Hodgson, executive director of Master Urban Educators LLC and former principal in New Bedford Public Schools who is married to former Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson.
Party voters also elected a lineup of write-in Ward Committee members.
With about a third of convention delegates needed to win each party nomination at stake on Super Tuesday — the biggest single day in the presidential primary calendar — Biden and Trump dominated in state after state. The outlier was Vermont, where in returns early Wednesday morning Haley was leading Trump with nearly 50% to 46%, according to The New York Times.
Along with Massachusetts, Trump won 12 state primaries and the Alaska caucuses. The New York Times reported Trump’s margins of victory ranging between 23 points in Massachusetts and 70 points in Alabama in primary voting.
Along with Massachusetts, Biden won 13 state primaries and the Iowa caucuses. The Times reported Biden’s margins of victory in these contests ranging between 51 points in Minnesota and 87 points in Iowa. Biden was defeated in the caucuses in American Samoa by Jason Palmer, described by the Times as a technology entrepreneur.
At New Bedford polls, there was a hitch involving a “brief period” when Republican ballots were not available at one polling location in Ward 1, Vibra Hospital. The Board of Election Commissioners released a statement saying that eight voters were left short of a ballot at first, but seven of those eventually returned to vote.
Voters at other locations were saying they came out because they always vote, and because they have particular concerns in this election.
At Normandin Middle School in Ward 1, Verna Drayton, an administrative assistant at UMass Dartmouth, said she was moved by her aversion to Trump.
“I don’t like him, don’t trust him,” said Drayton, an Independent voter who usually votes Democratic but cast a Republican ballot for Haley. She said she was surprised to hear that, in primary voting up to Tuesday, polls show that 46% of Trump’s voters have been women.
“The things that he has said, things that he has done, why would a woman vote for him?” she said. “Why would anyone?”
Mike Dumas, a retired steel painter and Independent voter who cast a ballot for Trump on Tuesday — as he did in 2016 and 2020 — offered a list of reasons.
“I don’t like the guy that’s in there,” he said, referring to Biden. “There isn’t a thing I like about the guy, and you can quote me.”
He said Biden has failed to control rising costs of housing and groceries, arguing the president should be able to do that. He said he liked Trump because he’s a business person, not a politician, but also said the government should be able to set prices charged by private businesses.
“I think there should be regulators,” said Dumas, voting at Holy Name of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Ward 3. “We got no watchdogs.”
Gordon Vieira, a retired machinist who was also voting at Holy Name, said he voted for Biden in 2020, but now, he said “the old man’s got to go.”
Vieira blamed Biden for his actions to “open up the borders,” and for making “a mess of everything overseas.”
He acknowledged he voted for Trump in 2016, then switched to Biden in 2020, but that was mostly because “Trump can’t close his mouth, but then you have to expect that from a businessman who’s always gotten his own way.”
Rita Caira, getting into her SUV after voting at Holy Name, said she cast a ballot for Biden, as she did in 2020. A receptionist, Caira said she was happy with the job Biden’s done.
So is Deon Santos, a retired truck driver voting at the Alma Del Mar Charter School in Ward 2. He acknowledged that the high cost of living is a problem for Biden, but said the president has “kept us out of war, more people have health care.”
At the Buttonwood Warming House in Ward 5, a voter who would only give his first name, Jared, said he did not like the direction the country is headed “constitutionally, morally, ethically.” The answer, he said: Donald Trump.
Asked how Trump would provide greater constitutional rigor, given his role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Jared said: “Show me some evidence…He did not incite those people.”
A union roofing worker, Jared said he’s concerned about border security and immigration: “Why do we have to overwhelm our country with migrants?” He said he believes new arrivals to the United States are given benefits that Americans would never receive in another country.
Email Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org
14.6% of registered voters voted! That seems deplorable, or maybe not. Not to the Master Manipulators! Interested parties can access who voted and concentrate future influence on only 14.6% of the population in order to control 100%! It would be interesting to research the true reasons why the other 85.4% were absent! With all that seems to be at stake for the future, that high percentage seems to be a case study.