Danvers Goes Red, Votes for Gomez in U.S. Senate Race

Democratic Congressman Ed Markey won the U.S. Senate race Tuesday night statewide, but not in Danvers. Republican Gabriel Gomez took Onion Town by 484 votes, only losing ground to Markey in Precinct 1.

Voter turnout was also 5 points higher than Town Clerk Joseph Collins had anticipated, given the level of interest shown by the voting public in the days leading up to the special election.

The official count was 25 percent Tuesday night with 4,793 registered voters out of 18,946 hitting the polls.

"I think we were all surprised," said Collins. "People were quietly interested and they showed up."

The final tally in Danvers was 2,621 for Gomez, 2,137 for Markey, 20 for Richard Heos, 13 for write-ins and two blanks.

While Markey was favored to win, and polling up until the election predicted that outcome, Danvers at any rate continues to follow a more Republican trend. About 4,300 voters are registered Democrats while 2,400 are Republicans and more than 12,000 are unenrolled.

Local voters decidedly chose Scott Brown over Elizabeth Warren in last fall's Senate race (8,591 to 5,929), as well as giving Republican Richard Tisei 592 more votes than embattled Congressman John Tierney.

Danvers, however, voted to give President Barack Obama a second term over electing former Gov. Mitt Romney (7,344 to 6,984).

Back in 2010, during the special election to fill the late Ted Kennedy's senate seat, Brown handily won in Danvers, 6,347 to Attorney General Martha Coakley's 3,651. Voter turnout that January was 57 percent in town.