Six primaries on the bubble

One sitting state senator has been unseated, another trails by three ballots, and a third incumbent survived by 159 votes. A town-by-town look at the closest contests of the September 1 primary.

Author

Brent Benson

Published

September 3, 2026

Massachusetts held its state primary on September 1. We will look at six state legislative races that have a margin of less than three percentage points, including the Suffolk and Middlesex State Senate race where incumbent Will Brownsberger (D-Belmont) is behind by three ballots out of more than 24,000 ballots cast.

The numbers in this post come from the Associated Press municipality-level feed, snapshotted on September 3, with expected vote between 98% and 99% in each race. None of these results are official, no municipality has certified, and AP still lists three of the six as too early to call.

The six closest races

*The six September 1 primaries decided by less than three points, closest first. Vote shares are of the two-candidate total. An asterisk marks the incumbent.*
Race	Leading	Votes	Trailing	Votes	Margin	Pts	AP
Suffolk & Middlesex Senate	Daniel Lander (D-Boston)	12,132 (50.0%)	Will Brownsberger (D-Belmont)*	12,129 (50.0%)	3	0.01	Too early
9th Bristol House	Edward Pacheco (D-Dartmouth)	2,469 (50.1%)	Stephen Medeiros (D-Dartmouth)	2,455 (49.9%)	14	0.28	Too early
1st Franklin House	Lora Wondolowski (D-Greenfield)	4,350 (50.6%)	Corinne Coryat (D-Deerfield)	4,252 (49.4%)	98	1.14	Too early
1st Bristol & Plymouth Senate	Gabriel "Boomer" Amaral (R-Fall River)	3,558 (50.6%)	Manny Silva (R-Somerset)	3,474 (49.4%)	84	1.19	Called
Norfolk & Suffolk Senate	Persis Yu (D-Boston)	15,609 (51.1%)	Michael Rush (D-Boston)*	14,956 (48.9%)	653	2.14	Called
1st Berkshire House	John Barrett III (D-North Adams)*	3,665 (51.1%)	Andrew Fitch (D-North Adams)	3,506 (48.9%)	159	2.22	Called
* Incumbent. Source: Associated Press municipality-level returns, snapshot of September 3.

Three of the six close legislative primaries were challenges to an incumbent. Senator Will Brownsberger (D-Belmont) is down by 3 votes in a race that is too close to call, Senator Michael Rush (D-Boston)’s challenger Persis Yu (D-Boston) has been declared the winner, and Representative John Barrett (D-North Adams) has been declared the winner by 159 votes.

Suffolk and Middlesex Senate: 3 votes

Suffolk and Middlesex Senate Democratic primary. Click a municipality for its vote totals.

Will Brownsberger has represented this district since 2012 after serving five years as a Representative in the House and chairs the Senate’s Judiciary Committee. Daniel Lander is a first-time candidate from the Fenway neighborhood of Boston and is a former senior policy adviser to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. Lander ran against the Beacon Hill status quo, but geographical affiliation seems to have played a role as well, with Brownsberger’s base in suburban Belmont, while roughly half the district’s votes are cast in Boston and Cambridge.

Brownsberger carried exactly one municipality—Belmont, where he lives—but he carried it by 37.8 points, a 2,181-vote cushion out of 5,767 cast. Lander won everywhere else: Boston by 21 points, Cambridge by 7, and Watertown, the district’s second-largest vote center, by 175 votes—very close to a tie. AP’s count as of this snapshot has Lander ahead by three votes out of 24,261—a margin of one hundredth of a percentage point.

The lead has moved more than once. The Watertown News and Boston.com have both described the race as headed for a recount. No Republican filed here, so the recount decides the seat.

*Suffolk and Middlesex Senate Democratic primary, by municipality.*
City/Town	Daniel Lander		Will Brownsberger		Margin		Total
City/Town	Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	Pts	Total
Boston	5,073	60.5%	3,312	39.5%	1,761	21.0	8,385
Watertown	3,404	51.3%	3,229	48.7%	175	2.6	6,633
Belmont	1,793	31.1%	3,974	68.9%	−2,181	−37.8	5,767
Cambridge	1,862	53.6%	1,614	46.4%	248	7.1	3,476
District total	12,132	50.0%	12,129	50.0%	3	0.0	24,261

Ninth Bristol House: 14 votes

Ninth Bristol House Democratic primary.

Eight-term Democrat Christopher Markey (D-Dartmouth) stepped down as State Representative to run for Bristol County District Attorney and will face Republican Seth Aitken (R-Swansea) in November. Two Dartmouth Democrats—Edward Pacheco, a bartender and transit manager, and Stephen Medeiros, who works in South Coast real estate—competed to replace him. Both campaigned against three large proposed housing developments that would push Dartmouth past the 10% affordable-housing threshold in state law New Bedford Light.

The district consists of Dartmouth, which cast 4,142 of the 4,924 votes, and a small slice of New Bedford. Both municipalities were nearly tied—Pacheco won Dartmouth by 22 votes, Medeiros took the New Bedford precincts by 8—which is how a race ends up 14 votes apart. This is one of only two of the six races where the winner will be competing against a candidate from the other party in November, in this case Republican Chester Tam of Dartmouth who won his party’s nomination unopposed.

*Ninth Bristol House Democratic primary, by municipality.*
City/Town	Edward Pacheco		Stephen Medeiros		Margin		Total
City/Town	Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	Pts	Total
Dartmouth	2,082	50.3%	2,060	49.7%	22	0.5	4,142
New Bedford	387	49.5%	395	50.5%	−8	−1.0	782
District total	2,469	50.1%	2,455	49.9%	14	0.3	4,924

First Franklin House: 98 votes

First Franklin House Democratic primary. This is the largest of the six districts—18 municipalities, most of them very small.

The First Franklin has been vacant since January, when Natalie Blais resigned to take an administrative post at UMass Amherst. Lora Wondolowski, president of the Greenfield City Council and founding executive director of the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters, faced Corinne Coryat of Deerfield, who had been Blais’s legislative aide. Housing was the central issue of the campaign, and both candidates were pressed on it in the closing weeks.

The eighteen towns of the district stretch from Montague and Greenfield west to hill towns like Monroe, Hawley, and Rowe that cast fewer than 100 votes each. Coryat carried 10 of the 18 municipalities, including her own Deerfield by 17 points, but Wondolowski won the two largest towns of Montague and Greenfield, which provided a third of the district’s votes, leading to an overall margin of 98 votes. Wondolowski will face independent Amy Lavallee (I-Whately) in November.

*First Franklin House Democratic primary, by municipality.*
City/Town	Lora Wondolowski		Corinne Coryat		Margin		Total
City/Town	Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	Pts	Total
Montague	856	55.0%	701	45.0%	155	10.0	1,557
Greenfield	844	62.1%	516	37.9%	328	24.1	1,360
Deerfield	471	41.3%	670	58.7%	−199	−17.4	1,141
Sunderland	308	46.9%	349	53.1%	−41	−6.2	657
Leverett	287	57.9%	209	42.1%	78	15.7	496
Shelburne	213	46.1%	249	53.9%	−36	−7.8	462
Ashfield	236	51.8%	220	48.2%	16	3.5	456
Conway	213	47.8%	233	52.2%	−20	−4.5	446
Buckland	176	43.2%	231	56.8%	−55	−13.5	407
Whately	111	33.0%	225	67.0%	−114	−33.9	336
Bernardston	144	43.0%	191	57.0%	−47	−14.0	335
Colrain	174	60.6%	113	39.4%	61	21.3	287
Charlemont	96	43.6%	124	56.4%	−28	−12.7	220
Leyden	97	59.5%	66	40.5%	31	19.0	163
Heath	47	37.0%	80	63.0%	−33	−26.0	127
Rowe	40	53.3%	35	46.7%	5	6.7	75
Hawley	26	44.1%	33	55.9%	−7	−11.9	59
Monroe	11	61.1%	7	38.9%	4	22.2	18
District total	4,350	50.6%	4,252	49.4%	98	1.1	8,602

First Bristol and Plymouth Senate: 84 votes

First Bristol and Plymouth Senate Republican primary.

This is the one Republican primary on the list. Gabriel “Boomer” Amaral of Fall River—who came close to winning the Fall River mayoralty in 2025—beat Manny Silva of Somerset, a teacher’s aide and retired IT specialist, for the right to challenge Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues, the Westport Democrat who has held the seat since 2011.

The map is a clean split between Amaral’s city and Silva’s suburbs. Amaral took Fall River by 666 votes and added smaller wins in Westport, Freetown, and a tiny three-vote edge in Lakeville. Silva won everywhere else: Somerset by 322, Swansea by 224, and Rochester by 186.

*First Bristol and Plymouth Senate Republican primary, by municipality.*
City/Town	Gabriel "Boomer" Amaral		Manny Silva		Margin		Total
City/Town	Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	Pts	Total
Fall River	1,321	66.9%	655	33.1%	666	33.7	1,976
Westport	616	55.3%	497	44.7%	119	10.7	1,113
Somerset	306	32.8%	628	67.2%	−322	−34.5	934
Lakeville	460	50.2%	457	49.8%	3	0.3	917
Swansea	301	36.4%	525	63.6%	−224	−27.1	826
Freetown	349	52.1%	321	47.9%	28	4.2	670
Rochester	205	34.4%	391	65.6%	−186	−31.2	596
District total	3,558	50.6%	3,474	49.4%	84	1.2	7,032

Norfolk and Suffolk Senate: 653 votes

Norfolk and Suffolk Senate Democratic primary.

Michael Rush has held this senate seat since 2011, after serving eight years in the House, and had not faced a primary or general election opponent since 2012. Persis Yu, a Hyde Park attorney who has spent her career litigating on behalf of student loan borrowers and consumers—first at the National Consumer Law Center, then at Protect Borrowers—ran against Rush and has been called as the winner by the AP.

Yu dominated in the Boston neighborhoods of West Roxbury, Roslindale, Hyde Park, and Jamaica Plain which provided over half of the primary votes. Rush won in all of the surrounding municipalities of Dedham, Norwood, Walpole, and Westwood. Rush declined Yu’s invitations to debate, a decision that drew attention through a campaign in which he was largely absent from candidate forums. There is no Republican filer for the seat and Yu will likely be sworn in as senator in January, 2027.

*Norfolk and Suffolk Senate Democratic primary, by municipality.*
City/Town	Persis Yu		Michael Rush		Margin		Total
City/Town	Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	Pts	Total
Boston	9,201	57.5%	6,812	42.5%	2,389	14.9	16,013
Dedham	2,059	46.7%	2,349	53.3%	−290	−6.6	4,408
Norwood	1,614	39.6%	2,463	60.4%	−849	−20.8	4,077
Walpole	1,618	45.8%	1,911	54.2%	−293	−8.3	3,529
Westwood	1,117	44.0%	1,421	56.0%	−304	−12.0	2,538
District total	15,609	51.1%	14,956	48.9%	653	2.1	30,565

First Berkshire House: 159 votes

First Berkshire House Democratic primary.

Representative John Barrett (D-North Adams) is the one challenged incumbent in this group who has been declared as the winner. Barrett was mayor of North Adams for 26 years before winning this House seat in a 2017 special election after the death of Rep. Gailanne Cariddi (D-North Adams), and his career in Berkshire politics goes back to 1984. Andrew Fitch (D-North Adams), vice president of the North Adams City Council since 2023, ran his first campaign for state office against him.

The two agreed on most of the district’s problems—the regional economy, housing, an aging population—and differed mainly on whether experience or a fresh perspective was the better answer. Barrett ran on his record of steering state money to the northern Berkshires. He won 11 of the district’s 13 municipalities. Williamstown, home to Williams College, went to Fitch by 20 points and 309 votes. Barrett survived because he broke even in the North Adams they share, winning it by 44 votes, and getting double-digit margins in Adams, Cheshire, Hinsdale, and the hill towns. There will be no Republican on the ballot in November.

*First Berkshire House Democratic primary, by municipality.*
City/Town	John Barrett III		Andrew Fitch		Margin		Total
City/Town	Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	Pts	Total
North Adams	1,161	51.0%	1,117	49.0%	44	1.9	2,278
Williamstown	611	39.9%	920	60.1%	−309	−20.2	1,531
Adams	774	57.3%	576	42.7%	198	14.7	1,350
Cheshire	267	56.6%	205	43.4%	62	13.1	472
Lanesborough	231	50.3%	228	49.7%	3	0.7	459
Clarksburg	163	56.6%	125	43.4%	38	13.2	288
Hinsdale	157	58.1%	113	41.9%	44	16.3	270
Windsor	86	61.0%	55	39.0%	31	22.0	141
Hancock	53	52.0%	49	48.0%	4	3.9	102
Peru	62	69.7%	27	30.3%	35	39.3	89
Florida	48	54.5%	40	45.5%	8	9.1	88
Savoy	34	48.6%	36	51.4%	−2	−2.9	70
New Ashford	18	54.5%	15	45.5%	3	9.1	33
District total	3,665	51.1%	3,506	48.9%	159	2.2	7,171

Possible recounts

Massachusetts allows a candidate to request a recount by petition, and recounts are likely to be requested in the closest of these races.

Results in this post come from the Associated Press municipality-level feed as collected in ma-election-db, snapshot of September 3. District geography and precinct assignments come from mapoli. The frozen data file used here is close_primaries_2026_09_03.csv.