(Updated at midnight.) After absentee ballots were counted Tuesday, Matt Smith widened a margin of victory in a close race to fill the city’s only open aldermanic seat.
The special election took place Tuesday in East Rock’s Ward 9 to fill the seat of Alderman Roland Lemar, who resigned to run for state representative.
Democrat-endorsed Matt Smith won 670 total votes, including absentee ballots. His opponent, independent nominating candidate Jessica Holmes, got 622.
Smith and Holmes congratulate each other at the polls.
The race appeared too close to call until the absentee ballots were counted late Tuesday. On the machines at Wilbur Cross High School, Smith beat Holmes 624 to 606.
Absentee ballots were counted in the basement of the Hall of Records at 200 Orange St. Both candidates predicted Smith would win the absentees. They didn’t bother to stick around for the count. Smith retired to Christopher Martin’s for a celebration; Holmes joined supporters at Mezcal.
The official count came in at 11:45 p.m. from head voting moderator Frank DelVecchio.
He announced that Smith took the majority of the absentee votes. With the help of absentee-ballot wizard Carlos Eyzaguirre, Smith received 46 absentee ballot votes; Holmes won 16.
Allan Appel Photo
Holmes (at right).
The race was hotly contested, but — unlike in some high-profile state and federal races this year — the mood was genial in Ward 9 Tuesday.
Smith and Holmes took turns accosting voters as they made their way from the crowded Wilbur Cross High School driveway and down the gauntlet between the candidates’ opposing tables to the polling place on a bright and crisp election day.
“A couple of times during the day I’ll slip out,” Holmes said. The purpose: to attend to her baby Evie, whom her mom came up from Virginia to help take care of during the election.
She described the gauntlet that voters were running between herself and Smith as “cordial,” at least for the candidates.
She didn’t have to convince Stephen Poland (pictured with her), who lives on Avon Street and volunteered for her campaign. He said she “inspires me on a daily basis.”
But Holmes said that when it was in effect her “turn” to speak to an approaching voter, she seized it as a “last chance to meet with people” who may be undecided.
Smith (at right).
Matt Smith (pictured chatting with supporter Ray Saracco) said he had been up since 4:50 a.m. and felt just “a little restless and a little nervous,” on the voters’ day of judgment.
“We’re close on many things,” Smith said of himself and his opponent. “It may come down to personality.”
Smith said he knocked on 50 to 70 doors a night seven days a week since the primary. Maybe 1,000 doors in total, he estimated.
As to the voters who early in the day at Cross left without voting due to excessive lines, both Smith and Holmes said they didn’t think it would affect the outcome of their race because the fleeing voters largely came from Ward 10. (Both wards were voting at Wilbur Cross Tuesday.)
“I just hope people in Ward 10 come back. I encouraged them to come back,” Smith said, adding that he suggested they try early in the afternoon before rush hour. He said he didn’t “want them to miss the top of the ticket.”
The genial mood spread to the streets. Paul Wessel (for Smith) and Stephen Poland (for Holmes) had never met until their vote-pulling paths crossed in a friendly way in the early evening on Nichol Street.
“I’m Stephen.”
“I’m Paul.”
That's Nicoll St.!