Edwards Wins State Senate Primary

District 1 City Councilor Lydia Edwards came out on top Tuesday night and made history once again as the first female woman of color to be nominated to the First Suffolk & Middlesex Senate seat. If there is no Republican challenger for the January 11 General Election, Edwards is on her way from City Hall to Beacon Hill.

“This is a moment to celebrate,” said Edwards at her victory party at Spinelli’s in East Boston. “I’m just overwhelmed by this moment, but I can assure you no one will forget this race. When I first ran for Senate in 2016 people asked, “Who is this girl?” but now this girl is the Senator for the First Suffolk & Middlesex District. I’m just so grateful to all of you, my entire universe. I want to thank my entire team because without them I wouldn’t be here.  They always had my back.”

Edwards won Boston wards and precincts in Beacon Hill, the North End, East Boston, Bay Village and Chinatown as well as wards and precincts in Cambridgeport.

In Winthrop, where some felt her challenger Anthony D’Ambrosio of Revere might pull off a win, Edwards won Winthrop with 1,189 votes to D’Ambrosio’s 873, and carried all but one precinct in the Town.

In her home neighborhood of Eastie, Edwards received 1,958 votes with D’Ambrosio receiving 774.

As expected, D’Ambrosio, who was elected to the Revere School Committee in 2019, won his home city handily with 3,121 votes to Edwards’s 933 votes, but the turnout there was lower than expected.

Councilor Edwards, an Eastie resident, previously ran for the Senate seat after former State Senator Anthony Petrucelli left office in 2016. While unsuccessful in that race, Edwards went on to run for the District One City Council seat, which includes Eastie, Charlestown, and the North End, the following year. She went on to win that race and has served on the council ever since.

D’Ambrosio was gracious in defeat at a gathering of his supporters at Casa Lucia in Revere.

“Going forward, we’re going to be represented by a really good person, a really smart person in Lydia Edwards,” said D’Ambrosio. “It’s in all of our best interests, it’s in our community’s best interest to have a vested stake in her success here. I really want to emphasize this: she’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. And that’s pretty clear. And she’s going to do really, really great things.”

Cary Shuman contributed to this story.