Connolly, Walsh win Boston preliminary mayoral election

Martin J. Walsh, a state representative who has been a champion of labor, will face off with John R. Connolly, a city councilor who promised bold leadership to transform Boston’s public schools, in the November final election for mayor of Boston.

The two men emerged as the two top vote-getters in tonight’s preliminary election. The Associated Press called the election as Walsh garnered 19,808 votes, or 18.4 percent, while Connolly received 18,809, or 17.5 percent, with 96.5 percent of precincts reporting. The men bested 10 other candidates in the non-partisan election.

The top two vote-getters now will vie in the Nov. 5 final election for the chance to guide the city into the future, succeeding long-time Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who, after being beset with a series of ailments, decided not to seek a sixth term.

Former city housing chief Charlotte Golar Richie came in third, followed by Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.

The 12 candidates ran a mostly civil race, campaigning energetically across the city for months. They participated in countless forums, shook innumerable hands, and plastered the city with their signs.

Walsh, 46, who lives in the Dorchester neighborhood, began serving in the state Legislature in 1998 and while there rose as a union official, eventually becoming the leader of the Boston Building Trades, an umbrella group that represents unions of ironworkers, electricians, and others. He resigned that job to run for mayor.

He’s known adversity in his life, struggling with cancer as a boy and with alcoholism as a young man. He was grazed by a bullet one night in an incident that he said wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been drinking.

Connolly, 40, who lives in the West Roxbury neighborhood, made waves when he voted against a Boston Teachers Union contract last year, balking at supporting a contract that didn’t ensure longer school days.

Just out of college, he taught school for several years before getting his law degree. He comes from a political family. His father was a long-time Massachusetts secretary of state, while his mother was chief justice of the state’s district courts. He was first elected to the council in 2007 and has been reelected twice.

 

Correspondent Patrick D. Rosso contributed to this report.