It appears the chair of the Cape Ann Political Action Committee has squeaked by in a three-way race to fill an open seat for Republican state committee man in the First Essex and Middlesex District, according to unofficial results of Tuesday’s Presidential Primary.
Three Gloucester women vying to be the next GOP state committee woman in the district were bested by a candidate from Ipswich.
Gloucester businessman Clayton Sova has a 71-vote lead over Michael Scarlata of North Reading in a sprawling district made up of 19 cities and towns that mirrors that of state Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester.
Jeffery Yull, chair of the North Reading Republican Town Committee, came in third.
Sova had a large vote haul in the seaport with 1,657 votes and that may have helped put him over the top.
In North Reading, Sova received 109 votes while his two opponents racked up 1,888 votes between them, with Yull taking 1,125 votes in his hometown.
An unofficial tally of votes in the district communities by the Times had Sova with 6,112 votes, Scarlata with 6,041 votes, and Yull with 5,597 votes.
Scarlata conceded in a message posted to his Facebook page on Wednesday afternoon: “Our campaign did narrow the gap to a loss of 71 votes from 195 as a result of late arriving mail-in ballots. Once I receive the official vote total I will post them. I will also reach out to Clayton Sova and congratulate him on his tremendous victory.”
Scarlata said online he was thankful to have won eight towns and happy for his vote total in his hometown.
“We knew we would lose Gloucester because Clayton has deep roots in that city and owns a business and we were hoping Jeff Yull would take votes away from him since Jeff aligned himself to Ashley Sullivan who is also from Gloucester. But unfortunately that didn’t materialize. We lost Gloucester by roughly 1,300 votes.”
“It was a hard-fought race,” Scarlata said in an interview.
Sova’s vote total in Gloucester did him in along with totals in Rockport and Essex. He said it did not help his cause that radio personality and columnist Howie Carr endorsed Sova and Lisa-Marie Cashman to represent the district on the GOP State Committee.
“Wow, that’s close,” Sova said when called by a Daily Times reporter about the narrow margin of victory. This was his first run for office and he would not declare a victory until the results were official.
“It was good to be the local guy in this race,” he said.
Yull kicked off his campaign for the GOP State Committee with Ashley Sullivan, chair of the Gloucester Republican City Committee at an event in Rowley in January, according to his campaign website. That event featured incumbent First Essex and Middlesex State Committee Man Rich Baker of West Newbury, who had announced in the spring he would not be seeking another term. In a letter to the editor, Baker had endorsed Yull for State GOP Committee.
In the race to replace incumbent Amanda Orlando to represent the district, there was a four-way race featuring three women from Gloucester: Sullivan, who ran unsuccessfully for state representative on Cape Ann two years ago; Cynthia Bjorlie; Nicole Coles; and Cashman of Ipswich, who was the eventual winner, according to unofficial results.
Overall, Cashman won with 8,520 votes, to Sullivan’s 5,193 votes, Bjorlie’s 2,549 votes, and Coles’ 1,289 votes, according to a tally of the unofficial results in each city and town.
Cashman ran it up in small towns such as Boxford where she earned 575 votes to Sullivan’s 186, Bjorlie’s 66 and Coles’ 46 votes. In Gloucester, Cashman came in third with 336 votes, behind Sullivan the winner here with 944 votes and Bjorlie with 903 votes, and in front of Coles with 291 votes.
Coles said she was excited by the results because they showed people want to be involved.
“There is a lot of excitement right now,” she said.
On the Democratic side, the race was uncontested in the district with Matthew C. Murray of Gloucester voted in as state committee man and Carla Carol Christensen winning re-election as state committee woman.
Cities and towns have until Saturday to certify their results, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Election Division.
Ethan Forman may be contacted at 978-675-2714, or at eforman@gloucestertimes.com.