A BAD CHOICE OF COUNTRIES IN WHICH TO BE THE URBAN PARTY:

Suburbs carried Brown to victory: Lower turnout recorded in most cities (Brian C. Mooney, January 21, 2010, Boston Globe)

Of the 25 lightest-voting communities, 18 were cities, including Boston (43 percent), Worcester (42 percent), and Springfield (32 percent). The Merrimack Valley city of Lawrence, with a majority Latino population, had the lowest turnout in the state, at 28 percent.

Coakley won those urban areas but with depressed vote totals that could not offset Brown’s huge advantage in the suburbs. The Republican swept large swaths of the state across Worcester County, the North and South shores, the Merrimack Valley, and most of Cape Cod. In Andover and North Andover, both of which went for Brown, traffic was backed up for a half-mile for long stretches as voters flocked to central polling places at the towns’ respective high schools.

In the South Shore district of Brown’s state Senate colleague Robert Hedlund, turnout was among the heaviest in the state. Brown trounced Coakley by a nearly 2-to-1 margin and built up a 21,000-vote lead in the district, which consists of the city of Weymouth and seven towns stretching south to Duxbury. Six of the eight communities had turnouts of 69 percent or higher.