Canton voters back Biden, Dems in busy ’20 election

A sign at the JFK polling location promotes social distancing during in-person voting on Election Day. (Mike Tureski photo)

In an election night filled with twists and turns across many key battleground states, Canton voters offered few surprises as they went solidly ‘blue’ in favor of Joe Biden for president along with Democratic incumbents for U.S. Senate and Congress.

While the presidential race appeared to be far from over as of press time on Wednesday, the heavily Democratic-leaning commonwealth of Massachusetts was called in favor of Biden early Tuesday night. In Canton, the former vice president easily outpaced President Donald Trump by an approximate margin of 63 percent to 34 percent — figures that were generally in line with the results of an online Citizen poll conducted a few weeks prior (68 to 29 percent in favor of Biden).

With additional mail-in ballots still to be tabulated — ballots with a postmark had to be received by the Town Clerk by November 6 — Biden appeared to be on track to outperform Hillary Clinton, who garnered 57 percent of the Canton vote in 2016 compared to 37 percent for Trump.

President Barack Obama, by comparison, carried Canton in the 2012 election by just five percentage points (52-47) and in the 2008 election by nine percentage points (53-44). During both of those election years, Canton’s Precinct 4 leaned Republican; however, Clinton reclaimed that section of town for the Democrats in 2016 and Biden built on the advantage this year, winning 60 percent of the precinct vote compared to 38 percent for Trump.

Among the other presidential candidates that appeared on the Massachusetts ballot, only Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen managed more than 1 percent of the Canton vote, with a smattering of votes being spread among Howie Hawkins (Green-Rainbow) and assorted write-ins along with a few dozen blanks.

In the other contested races on this year’s ballot, Canton’s unofficial results were consistent with the state- and county-wide figures. In the U.S. Senate battle, Democratic incumbent Ed Markey easily won reelection over Republican challenger Kevin O’Connor. And in the race for Massachusetts’ 8th Congressional seat, veteran lawmaker Stephen Lynch (D) cruised to a victory over independent candidate Jonathan Lott while garnering 70.6 percent of the Canton vote.

In the Norfolk County races, Canton native Richard Staiti edged Heather Hamilton of Brookline by 2.4 percentage points to win the second open county commissioner’s seat. Incumbent Commissioner Joe Shea of Quincy was the overall winner, garnering 49.2 percent of the vote and finishing as the top vote-getter in 27 of 28 Norfolk County towns. The lone exception was in Canton, where Staiti, a former town selectman and retired Canton High School teacher, was the overwhelming winner with more than 56 percent of the vote. Staiti also placed second in 14 Norfolk County towns and took third in 13 others.

Canton voters also backed a winner in the race for Norfolk sheriff as they went with Democratic challenger Patrick McDermott of Quincy over current Sheriff Jerry McDermott of Westwood by a margin of 50 to 39 percent. Patrick McDermott, the former Norfolk register of probate, carried 20 towns in all while Jerry McDermott won eight towns with Norwood still to report.

Also winning elections in uncontested races on Tuesday were incumbent state Representative Bill Galvin of Canton, incumbent state Senator Walter Timilty of Milton, and incumbent Governor’s Councillor Robert Jubinville of Milton. Additionally, Colleen Brierley, an attorney from Norwood, was elected as Norfolk register of probate, and Michael Bellotti, former Norfolk sheriff, was elected as county treasurer.

On the two initiative petition questions that appeared on the ballot, Canton voters went the way of the state for both of them, voting ‘Yes’ to amend the “Right to Repair Law” to allow independent repair shops to have access to motor vehicle telematics data, and ‘No’ to the proposed adoption of a “ranked-choice voting” system in Massachusetts.

In terms of voter participation, a whopping 90 percent of Canton’s active registered voter pool — 14,553 out of 16,211 — cast a ballot prior to the close of polls on Tuesday. Thousands took advantage of the vote by mail or early voting options, with additional mail-in ballots likely to trickle in between now and Friday, November 6. Turnout is already up considerably from the 2016 election, when approximately 80 percent of Canton voters cast ballots.

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