Final List: Candidates In The Marlborough 2021 Election

MARLBOROUGH, MA — The Aug. 17 filing deadline passed at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, and now we can say for sure that Marlborough's 2021 election is not going to change the city's elected leadership very much.

There will only be three contested races in 2021 for the mayor's seat, Ward 4 Councilor and the School Committee. That means 10 candidates will appear on the November ballot who are guaranteed to be reelected.

Marlborough also won't have any primary elections this year because none of the contested races have attracted a big enough field of candidates. Here's a look at the three contested races

Marlborough Mayor

Mayor Arthur Vigeant will be going for a sixth term in 2021, and he'll face off against the same man who ran against him in 2019: veteran Marlborough police officer David Garceau.

In 2019, Garceau lost to Vigeant by about 1,500 votes. That's about the same margin Vigeant has won by in each year he's faced a challenger since he was first elected in 2011 (a squeaker of an election where Vigeant beat Matthew Jones by just 42 votes). The closest anyone has come to beating Vigeant was in 2015, when Edward Bigelow came within about 1,300 votes.

Vigeant is in a good position to win again in 2021 with more than $37,000 in his campaign coffers, and a well known name after serving as either mayor or a City Councilor for nearly 30 years.

Ward 4 City Council

After almost 11 years in office, Ward 4 City Councilor Robert Tunnera will face a challenger for the first time. He first won his seat in 2010, besting Steven Kerrigan in a special election for Peter Juaire's seat 337 votes to 200. Juaire resigned in 2010 to move to Florida, but returned and won an At-Large seat in 2015 — incumbent Samantha Perlman, who is unchallenged this year, took his seat in 2019.

First time candidate Teona Brown will face off against Tunnera in November. She filed to run early, saying it was a longtime dream of hers to hold office.

"This has been a dream of mine, since I was in 5th grade! I can't wait to meet my neighbors, from Ward 4 and beyond!" she wrote in a June 26 Instagram post when she pulled papers to run in 2021.

Marlborough School Committee

Three Marlborough School Committee members are up for reelection this year, and all three are running again: Denise Ryan, Earl Geary and Michelle Bodin-Hettinger. According to the City Clerk, challenger Maureen Brennan returned her papers before Tuesday's deadline and is expected to be certified to run in 2021.

Here are the remaining 2021 candidates who are going unchallenged:

City Council At-Large

• Michael Ossing (i)
• Samantha Perlman (i)
• Mark Oram (i)
• Kathleen Robey (i)

City Council Ward 1

• Laura Wagner (i)

City Council Ward 2

• David Doucette (i)

City Council Ward 3

• Christian Dumais (i)

City Council Ward 5

• John Irish (i)

City Council Ward 6

• Sean Navin (i)

City Council Ward 7

• Donald Landers Sr. (i)