Trane conceeds, Sciortino celebrates victory on stickers
Medford Transcript & Somerville Journal, by Staff reports
Sep 16, 2008
Carl Sciortino has won the state rep race on a sticker campaign tonight defeating challenging alderman Bob Trane.
Trane has conceded the state rep race to incumbent Carl Sciortino, according to recent updates on both their campaign Web sites.
Celebrating his victory at a filled-to-capacity Sabur Restaurant in Teele Square, Sciortino thanked his opponent for a "spirited" campaign.
Trane has reportedly lost the race by about 300 votes, according to his Web site.
In his victory speech, Sciortino noted his past success and said there are key issues that need to be looked at in the coming year: education, finance for transportation and equality for all.
Addressing the cheering audience he also upheld calls for support for Barack Obama and a resounding no to Question 1 in November.
"Early results show that the write-in votes were strong enough to give me a clear victory," Sciortino said on his Web site. "We appreciate all of the support from the families of Medford and Somerville and all of the hard work and support from our campaign team."
"I don't know the exact numbers on the 34th yet, but what I see on paper is pretty surprising," said Medford City Clerk Ed Finn.
Earlier this evening, local officials were predicting it would take a while to count all the votes in the contested Sciortino-Trane race due to the large volume of write-ins for both the 34th and Middlesex Registrer of Probate race.
This is the only local race in Somerville. Ward 7 Alderman Trane was on the Democratic ballot and Sciortino ran an aggressive write-in/sticker campaign having failed to make the ballot after what he said was the theft off his State House desk of his nomination papers.
Trane is meeting with his supporters at the Sons of Italy on the Medford line off Broadway tonight. The Journal was denied entry to his party.
We are waiting for the unofficial results from the city's Elections Department tonight.
Auditi Guha, Nell Escobar Coakley, Kathleen Powers and Rob Barry contributed to this story.