Clinton wins in record turnout
Published on February 6th, 2008
STONEHAM, MA - In a record-breaking showing at both the State and town level, 7,388 Stoneham residents went to the Town Hall polls on Tuesday and made their voices heard in the Massachusetts Presidential Primary.
Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was the clear victor in both the town of Stoneham and state of Massachusetts, and nabbed 3,333 of the votes in Stoneham while Barack Obama came in second with 1,507 votes and Mitt Romney came in a distant third as the Republican leader with 1,226 votes.
Statewide, Clinton took 56 percent of the vote with 704, 591 votes in Massachusetts and comfortably claimed victory over Obama as well as Republicans Romney and John McCain.
The clear winner was the voting process as Stoneham turnout was at a record-high of 50 percent up from 18 percent voter turnout for the Presidential primary in 2004.
"This tells me that there is change in the air, baby," said Town Clerk John Hanright, who had a little less than 300 absentee ballots for yesterday's primary and expects somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,300-1,400 absentee ballots for the November Presidential election. "People obviously feel a lot more passionately than they did four years ago about coming out and having their voices heard. I thought there would be a bump from the 18 percent in 2004, but I honestly never expected it to this great a turnout."
According to Hanright, the 50 percent turnout for a Presidential Primary was a record in the town of Stoneham and the 1.7 million voters that turned out state-wide also broke a record set in 1980.
Hanright expects another record turnout again in November for the actual Presidential election.
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