Bielat Comes Up Short

Sean Bielat fought valiantly but came up short. I guess it was always going to be an uphill battle in a district where you have 75% democrats, but he still made it fairly close: 54% to 43%. In analyzing the result, Frank had 38% fewer votes than he did in 2008 - this was expected. Bielat also had 35% more than the Republican challenger in 2008. While 35% is a big jump from 2008, I thought he would get much more considering the profile of the race. Just seems like the Republicans didn't come out to vote - either that or in this district, there just aren't any republicans, which is also probably true. But still a strong effort in a near-impossible democratic-engineered district, especially considering Bielat is actually closer to a libertarian than a republican.

It actually looks like Bielat did great on a town by town basis, as he took 28 of 39 towns and was competitive in almost all of them except for 3: Newton, Brookline, and New Bedford. In these 3 towns, Bielat got 33,000 fewer votes than Frank (overall he lost by 24,000 votes).

Oh well. Rome wasn't built in a day. Gerry-mandered strongholds take a long time to dismantle. I'd love to see Bielat build upon his experience by running again in two years or even going after Senator Kerry next time.