Patrick ’78 Makes History in Electoral Rout

Deval L. Patrick ’78 handily defeated Lt. Gov. Kerry M. Healey ’82 yesterday, reclaiming the Massachusetts governorship for Democrats after 16 years of Republican administrations. Patrick will be the first black governor of Massachusetts and the only black governor in the nation.

With 96 percent of precincts reporting, Patrick had 56 percent of the vote to Healey’s 35. Independent candidate Christy Mihos took 7 percent, while Green-Rainbow candidate Grace C. Ross ’83 won 3 percent.

With the victory, Patrick—who once sat on Harvard’s 30-member Board of Overseers—capped off an unlikely candidacy that began in April 2005.

He surprised the state’s political establishment during the Democratic Primary, winning the state party’s endorsement in June and beating two better-known rivals in the September primary.

After his primary win, Patrick consistently held double-digit leads over Healey that swelled to more than 20 percentage points in local polls after Healey ran a controversial ad linking Patrick to convicted rapist Benjamin LaGuer.

“This was not a victory just for me, this was not a victory just for Democrats, this was a victory for hope,” Patrick said at his victory rally in Boston last night. “What I expect from you is that you keep this renewed sense of community alive—that you don’t let cynicism win.”

Fiscal issues dominated this fall’s race, with Healey attacking Patrick’s spending plans and his refusal to support rolling back the income tax from 5.3 to 5 percent.

Patrick responded that cutting income taxes would require an increase in property taxes, adding that Healey and Gov. Mitt Romney had raised state fees by more than $700 million to avoid increasing taxes.

Healey’s strategy of attacking Patrick’s fiscal policies while emphasizing her socially liberal positions—she is pro-choice and favors stem cell research—failed to gain traction, even though Romney and former governors Paul Cellucci and William F. Weld ’66 had employed similar strategies successfully.

Although Patrick has never held elected office, his emphasis on his leadership experience in the private sector and in the Clinton administration appeared to resonate with voters, propelling him to the strongest gubernatorial victory since Weld’s 1994 race for reelection.

In other statewide races, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy ’54-’56—a member of the Senate since 1962—easily defeated Republican Kenneth Chase by a three to one margin.

In the attorney general race, veteran Middlesex County District Attorney Martha Coakley beat Republican Larry Frisoli, a former Cambridge vice-mayor, to become Massachusetts’ first female attorney general. Coakley won about two-thirds of the vote, according to early returns.

Because Coakley vacated her current post to run for attorney general, Middlesex County will have a new district attorney for the first time since 1999.

Gerard T. Leone Jr. ’85, a former federal prosecutor backed by Coakley, ran unopposed for the seat after State Sen. Jarrett T. Barrios ’90 dropped out of the primary race. Barrios instead ran again for state senator and faced no opposition.

Alice K. Wolf, the state representative for the district that includes Harvard, and Democratic Congressman Michael E. Capuano, who represents Somerville, Cambridge, and other parts of Greater Boston, both faced only nominal opposition and won reelection handily.

Unopposed, Cambridge City Councillor Michael A. Sullivan won his race to become the next Middlesex County Clerk of Courts, a position held for the last 48 years by his uncle, Edward J. Sullivan.

The younger Sullivan has said that he will serve out his city council term and determine whether to seek reelection as a city councillor next year.

If he decides not to run for reelection, it will mark the first time in 70 years that no one from the Sullivan clan serves on the council. Michael “Mickey the Dude” Sullivan, the grandfather of the current councillor, won a seat in 1936.

—Staff writer Paras D. Bhayani can be reached at pbhayani@fas.harvard.edu.