Mayor Katjana Ballantyne, coming in third in Tuesday’s preliminary elections in Somerville, will be off the ballot in November, and councilor at-large Jake Wilson is now the frontrunner for the office.
Wilson took 42 percent of votes in the election, according to unofficial results released by the Election Commission, and Willie Burnley Jr. got 34. Ballantyne, first elected mayor in 2021 after serving as Ward 7 councilor for four terms, trailed at 23 percent and is likely denied a third term. Ballantyne conceded in a speech to supporters, The Boston Globe reported.
There was 23 percent voter turnout, or 12,207 ballots cast from among 52,243 registered voters, according to the Election Commission. Another 100, mainly absentee or overseas ballots, are outstanding and will be counted to make the vote official.
A question for the next phase of the campaign is how many of Ballantyne’s 2,847 voters in the preliminary will switch their allegiance to Wilson, who emerged Tuesday with 5,109 votes, or to Burnley, with a showing of 4,117 votes.
Wilson held a victory party in the backyard of his Winter Hill home, attended by campaign aides and volunteers, friends and colleagues from Somerville Youth Soccer, and fellow councilors Jesse Clingan and Matt McLaughin.
“We are humbled and really grateful to the voters of Somerville for the support that they showed our campaign and for their belief in me. We are looking forward to the next phase of the campaign,” Wilson told Cambridge Day.
Playing bartender at his own party and fielding a continual stream of congratulations in person and by phone, Wilson said he woke up Tuesday feeling like he’d win – and that he would break 40 percent.
Ballantyne and Burnley did not respond immediately to requests for comment. Burnley was at a party in the back room of The Burren bar in Davis Square.
The mayor did call Wilson very briefly to offer congratulations, Wilson said.
Other races shaken up
The preliminary election also creates a shortlist of candidates for councilor at large, Ward 7 councilor and a Ward 3 representative for the School Committee.
Of the dozen candidates for councilor at large, incumbents Kristen Strezo and Will Mbah will move on alongside newcomers Ben Wheeler, Jonathan Link, Marianne Walles, Jack Perenick, Holly Simione and Scott Istvan. Mbah, Wheeler and Strezo scored 15 percent, 13 percent and 11 percent of the vote each, while the others received between 5 percent and 8 percent.
Christopher Ryan Spicer, Justin Klekota, Ari Iaccarino and Tuesday Thomas will not advance.
In the contested Ward 7, where a council seat was left open after Judy Pineda Neufeld’s departure on June 30, Emily Hardt and Wilbert Pineda will advance. Michael Murray will be removed from the ballot. Hardt received 57 percent of the vote, Pineda 23 percent and Murray 15 percent.
In a tight race for an open School Committee seat in Ward 3, Michele Lippens and Jessie Ratey will continue. Lippens won 30 percent of the vote, while Ratey received 27.7 percent over Kat S. Johnston’s 27.3 percent.
Full results are available online.
A stronger
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This is all well and good but the real news is that Minerva, a long-haired black beauty, won as the Somerville bike path mayor. Her campaign sign said simply “Crime.”
Ballantyne’s well meaning but inept and deficient reign of terror is finally over.