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Donald Trump received 1,484 more votes than Kamala Harris in the town of Acushnet on Tuesday.
In New Bedford’s Ward 1, residents of the sprawling middle-class section of single-family ranches also voted for Trump for president. And so did the folks who live in the three-family homes in working-class Ward 2, albeit by a somewhat smaller margin.
In Dartmouth — which is home to some of the region’s most affluent Democratic-leaning villages — Donald Trump lost by just 31 votes in a race where the two candidates split almost 19,000 votes between them.
In Acushnet, a town divided south to north between blue-collar and upscale neighborhoods and long known as Republican-leaning, Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris by a stunning 1,484 votes.
Yes, it was a big night for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania and North Carolina and Wisconsin. But it was also a big night for the former president in places like New Jersey, New York City and yes, Greater New Bedford. In all of them he narrowed the margin of his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020.
The former president didn’t win the Whaling City in the end. The professional class that lives in the Victorian homes of Ward 5 came out big for Harris, giving her a 1,366 vote margin, helping push the vice president’s margin over the former president to almost 2,700 votes overall in the city.
Breaking down votes across Massachusetts; choose your town or city below.
Learn how New Bedford voted in national elections ⇢
People will talk about racism and sexism and alleged threats to democracy, but this election at the presidential level looks more to me like the price of butter and housing. How else to explain his increased popularity in neighborhoods of such diverse incomes?
Beside the presidential race, what interested me most about the Greater New Bedford results Tuesday were the number of blank votes in Mark Montigny’s Senate race.
Yes, the three-decade senator coasted to victory with only a token write-in opposition. But out of 34,565 votes cast, some 6,796 people couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a man who has represented them for 30-plus years when there was no one else’s name on the ballot. Another 852 people wrote in someone else.
It’s been an ongoing problem for the senator. Two years ago, in a non-presidential year, there were 20,844 votes cast with 4,405 blanks and 535 write-ins.
Was it the senator’s mishandling of UMass-Dartmouth’s Star Store campus? Was it the fact that Montigny doesn’t seem to be around all that much anymore? I don’t know. It would be great if he made some sort of a statement addressing the obvious concerns of so many voters.
In the two competitive state rep races, the results were also more than interesting.
In the 10th Bristol District centered around Fairhaven, Mark Sylvia’s victory over Joe Pires was solid (52% to 48%) but not overwhelming.
Pires, best known for his efforts to ban books at the Old Rochester Regional High School library, pulled some 12,192 votes to Sylvia’s 13,424.
Sylvia, a longtime Fairhaven town moderator and former state undersecretary of energy, brought solid progressive credentials to the contest. But the district — divided between the more liberal coastal suburbs and the more conservative inland ones — was closely contested between the left- and right-leaning candidates.
It’s worth noting that Pires won in the sliver of New Bedford’s North End that is in the district. Any way you cut it, it’s a testament to the strong strain of cultural conservatism in our region.
In the 8th Bristol District — a sprawling, gerrymandered district that stretches from Westport to Acushnet, and includes portions of New Bedford, Fall River and Freetown — it turned out that party identification still means something.
In that sense, the South Coast is not a place like Vermont or Maine, where there is a long tradition of independents winning. And it doesn’t hurt that gerrymandering gives the suburban district a slice of Democratic New Bedford, as is also the case for the 9th and 10th Bristol House districts.
Jesse St. Gelais dominated his conservative base in Acushnet, but a late-entry campaign by a Westport Republican kept his numbers down in his hometown, the only community that is entirely located in the district.
Together with the Fall River and New Bedford precincts, the Democrat Steve Oulette, a well-respected townie who has long been at the heart of that community’s volunteer community, was able to hang on.
The district will be competitive going forward. And South Coast, of all the areas of Massachusetts, continues to be friendly territory for Republicans, although still a minority in a district rigged by state Democratic leadership in the redistricting after the 2020 Census.
Going forward, it would be great if the new reps take care to represent both their conservative and progressive constituents as much as possible in an era when the country’s views of the two philosophies are so deeply at odds.
Jack Spillane is a New Bedford Light columnist. Email him at jspillane@newbedfordlight.org.
Editor’s Note: This story was amended on Nov. 7, 2024, to reflect that Donald Trump received significantly more votes in the town of Acushnet than Kamala Harris. An earlier version comparing his total to Mark Montigny was incorrect.
When I woke up yesterday morning, I felt like I was in a Stephen King novel, and that feeling has not gone away. The apparent values of the majority of voters in this country are no longer the values that my family taught me–including honesty, compassion, respect for education. I am heartsick.
ditto- well said Catherine.
I agree that bread and butter issues wound up being the dominant factor in this race. (Harris could not disconnect from the perception of many that “things were better under Trump”, and she did not adequately acknowledge that many are still really economically stressed) This was reflected in most age, class and ethnic groups. Unfortunately the Democrat party had a real tin ear in this area and only addressed it by saying that things really are good– you just don’t understand macro economic statistics!
Another factor following national trends, in New Bedford specifically, was the impressive cultural inroads into the Hispanic population by the Republican party. The Democrat post-mortem must examine all of these trends carefully, sort out what happened, and make some course corrections to their messaging. Otherwise these and other factors like loss of younger people support, particularly young males, will remain a significant handicap for future election success.
When the cuts to transit funding begin, Southcoast Rail and SRTA should be the first things to go. Bristol County voted far more heavily than the rest of the state for Trump, and Trump actually won Fall River.
Trump and his team = unity, prosperity for ALL, peace, truth and transparency. He is surrounding himself with other smart people who have lived in the real world. To those of you who can’t deal with his popular & electoral victory, seek FACTUAL evidence of his & his team’s love for all people and successes. (You will not find it in parroting main stream media conglomerate). See interview with Tyrus, Joe Rogan, RNC speeches, videos from 1980’s & 90’s.
Agree 100 percent , well said T.Park
agree well said
Trump won because he’s not a liar. He actually cares about our country, not controlling what the public is “allowed” to know! It’s sad that people don’t research the candidates. 99% of what main stream media says about him are completely false! Time to face reality and push back left woke bs. Go Trump