Charlestown's Ballot Breakdown: Analyzing The 2024 Election Results

Every now and again, the Bunker Hill Associates like to deep dive into the nuances of what makes Charlestown, well…Charlestown. We do this in the hope that understanding these nuances will bring a better understanding of our community and the people who make it up. For example, last year we created an infographic that broke down Charlestown’s population demographics based upon the latest census data. This time around, we figured we would dive into the recent election results to understand who and what we stand for as a community.

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How Did Charlestown Vote?

As I’m sure you already know (or should know), this past November we held an election in this country. We voted for the men and women to lead us federally in the highest offices of the land; we voted for the men and women to lead us locally here in Boston; and we voted for various initiatives/ballot questions that directly asked us as constituents to weigh in on the thorniest issues facing Massachusetts. Now that about 2.5 months have transpired since election day, everyone knows who and what was elected/passed (i.e. Trump will return to the White House; Ryan and DiDomenico will continue to fight the good fight on Beacon Hill; and MCAS is no longer a graduation requirement). But what we at the Bunker Hill Associates want to know is “what did Charlestown, specifically, vote for?” We want to know if we bucked any of the trends, and if there was any diversity among electoral perspectives from the 8 precincts in Charlestown. Below we will delve into the data and give you some analysis about how the greatest square mile on earth voted. Feel free to reach out with any questions regarding the Charlestown 2024 election results! We hope you enjoy!

The Basics

In order to make sense of the data, we think it’s helpful to start with a refresher on how we vote here in Boston. The city of Boston is split up into 22 voting districts called “wards,” and each ward is further split into smaller subdivisions called “precincts” that group neighbors into voting blocks and polling locations. Charlestown is Ward 2 and has 8 Precincts. You can check which precinct you live in here or just look at the image below.

Although we have roughly 15,044 registered voters (active and inactive) living among those 8 precincts (which equates to roughly 3.43% of Boston’s total voting base), not everyone comes out to vote. We refer to the percentage of eligible voters that actually go out to vote “voter turnout.” Charlestown’s voter turnout for the 2024 election was 68.65%. That number doesn’t mean that 68.65% of all voters voted in every single race- it simply means that 68.65% of our voters (or ~10,328 Townies) submitted a ballot. With that out of the way, let’s see how our 10,328 voters voted across their 8 precincts, and then we’ll break each of the races down for you!

Results/Raw Data

All data was pulled from “State and City of Boston Election Results” database.

Election Breakdown

The Federal Offices

Let’s begin with the big ticket races for federal offices (President, Senate, House).

Presidential Election

Results

To start with, we need to acknowledge up front that we live in a Democratic-leaning state, city, and town. This was borne out in the data with Kamala Harris winning 72% of the Charlestown vote to Donald Trump’s 24.7% (3.3% went to other candidates). Breaking this down further, Precinct 1 showed the most support for Trump (Harris’ 66.2% vs Trump’s 30.7%), while Precinct 4 showed the strongest support for Harris (Harris’ 77.3% vs Trump’s 19.9%).

Analysis

But the interesting thing about this result is that it actually showed that Charlestown was more supportive of Trump than Boston as a whole (24.7% support in Charlestown vs 19.7% support in Boston generally). And this support for Trump increased almost 4 percentage points from the 2020 election (Trump only received 20.6% of Charlestown’s vote in 2020)! But to be fair, Charlestown’s rightward move in this election is not a groundbreaking piece of information as it was the case nearly across the country. So let’s look at another race to see if there is other data to indicate where the Charlestown voting base stands.

Federal Senatorial Election

Results

Next up we have the race for one of Massachusetts’ two senate seats (the other Senator is Ed Markey, who is up for re-election in 2026). This race also showed that we live in a Democratic stronghold with Warren (Democrat) winning 66.7% of the Charlestown vote to John Deaton’s (Republican) 32.9%. Deaton received the strongest support in Precincts 1 and 2 (Warren’s ~63.4% vs Deaton’s ~36.1%), while Warren found the greatest share of the vote from Precinct 8 (Warren’s 78% vs Deaton’s 21.9%).

Analysis

Although you may be tempted to assume that Deaton might perform roughly in line with Trump’s numbers (or even underperform given Deaton’s lack of name recognition), that doesn’t seem to be the case. Deaton appears to have outpaced Trump’s support by 8.2% (or 671 more votes)! This could be due Deaton’s cryptocurrency policy stance and military background resonating with the Charlestown electorate. But it’s more likely this is a story of Charlestown’s general swing to the right combined with the fact that he doesn’t carry the same adversarial baggage as Trump (i.e. some anti-Trump conservatives voted for Harris AND Deaton). In effect, this race shows that a significant portion of the Charlestown electorate (between a quarter to a third) is open to the Republican party’s platform.

Federal Congressional Election

Results

To round out the federal elections, we turn our attention to the House of Representatives. Here Ayanna Pressley ran unopposed in the recent election, which means that this race is not as interesting as many of the others. Nonetheless it was informative to look at which parts of Charlestown showed the most and least support. In this regard, Pressley received most of her support from Precincts 7 and 8 (95.5% and 96.5%, respectively), and the least of her support from Precincts 1 and 2 (both at 93.7%).

Analysis

There are 2 pieces of analysis that are worth mentioning in this election. The first is that Pressley received more raw votes in Charlestown (7,488) than Harris (7,347) or Warren (6,652). The second is that this race had the lowest voter turnout of the 3 federal elections (only 52.53% of all eligible voters cast a ballot for this race compared to 66.26% for Senate and 67.83% for President). But both of these outcomes are probably attributable to the fact that Pressley ran unopposed (i.e. she got her vote out, while anti-Pressley voters simply ignored checking any box in this race).

The State Offices

As we turn our attention to the state-level elections, the nuances aren’t as pronounced due to the fact that both candidates for both offices ran unopposed. Nonetheless, let’s dig in!

State Senatorial Election

Results

Sal DiDomenico ran unopposed to represent the Middlesex and Suffolk district, which includes Charlestown (as well as parts of Cambridge, Chelsea, and Everett). As a result, DiDomenico was able to garner 97.8% of the Charlestown vote, winning the highest vote share in Precinct 7 (98.6%) and the lowest vote share in Precinct 8 (96.9%). As a percentage of DiDomenico’s overall vote share, Charlestown contributed 17% of his votes.

Analysis

In unopposed races, it is sometimes informative to look at how the candidate’s support has changed over time since the last election. But looking back at the 2022 election, DiDomenico’s support dropped only very slightly (-0.6%) from 98.4%. It appears that DiDomenico’s signature policy effort this past session, rezoning a part of Everett to host a professional soccer stadium, didn’t do much to affect his level of support in either direction in Charlestown. Ultimately, Charlestown strongly supports our State Senator!

State Representative Election

Results

Danny Ryan also ran unopposed to represent the 2nd Suffolk District, which includes Charlestown (as well as parts of Cambridge, Everett, and additional parts of Boston like the Fenway area). As a result, he received 97.8% of the Charlestown vote, winning the highest vote share in Precinct 7 (98.2%) and the lowest vote share in Precinct 1 (97.2%). As a percentage of Danny’s overall vote share, Charlestown contributed 64% of his votes.

Analysis

Interestingly, both Danny Ryan and Sal DiDomenico received the exact same Charlestown vote share (97.8%) and lost the exact same share since 2022 (-0.6%). It would appear that Charlestown enthusiastically supports both of our state-level elected officials, and the coincidental slight vote share loss is possibly attributable to a very small shift to the right generally. The Bunker Hill Associates include ourselves in the Danny Ryan support camp since he MC’s our annual political Parade Day Breakfast in June!

The Ballot Questions

Finally, 2024 saw 5 contentious issues brought to the people for a direct vote. Due to the number of ballot questions, we will spell out the issues here, show you the vote totals, and then offer a few key insights.

The Issues

Question 1: Legislature Audit
- This ballot measure authorizes the state auditor to audit the state Legislature.
Question 2: MCAS Repeal
- This ballot measure repeals a requirement that students pass an academic competency exam in order to graduate from high school.
Question 3: Rideshare Union
- This ballot measure allows drivers for transportation networks, such as Uber or Lyft, to form labor unions and engage in collective bargaining.
Question 4: Psychedelics
- This ballot measure would have legalized, regulated and taxed the sale of psychedelic substances found in mushrooms and plants for use by people age 21 and older.
Question 5: Full Minimum Wage
- This ballot measure would have gradually raised the state minimum wage paid to tipped workers from the current rate of $6.75 an hour until it reached the standard minimum wage for other workers of $15 an hour in 2029.

The Results

Analysis

There are 3 things worth noting about the results of the ballot questions:

Question 2 - MCAS Repeal
- It appears that Charlestown actually voted against repealing the MCAS requirement for high school graduation, while Massachusetts and Boston handily voted in favor of this. And it wasn’t even close! Charlestown not only voted against the measure, but did so in a way that created a 9.8% gap when compared to the state (i.e. 49.3% vs 59.1%).
- The reasons for this are difficult to discern without exit polling data from the voters, but some factors that may be related to this outcome might surround Charlestown’s perspective on the recent changes at exam schools or the fact that a relatively small share of our residents work in the education field (~6%).
Question 4 - Psychedelics
- When it comes to the question surrounding psychedelics, Charlestown again showed that it had a different stance than the state writ large. Charlestown supported allowing the use of psychedelics by 51.3%, while the state as a whole voted it down with only 43.2% support.
- What’s also interesting about this result was Precinct 7’s enthusiastic embrace of this issue. They voted in favor of this measure with 63.1% support- 8.5% more than any other precinct! In fact, this level of support was a major contributor to pushing Charlestown over the line to ultimately support the effort (although it failed at the state level, which is the only one that really matters for enacting these initiatives).
Precinct 8 Generally
- In 2023 Boston underwent a redistricting initiative in light of the updated census data. As a result of this effort, we added an 8th precinct to Ward 2. Something to note about this precinct is that although it encompasses roughly 1932 voters (the 3rd most in Charlestown), it never broke 43% voter turnout (i.e. people seem to vote less in this precinct than others). As a result of this, there were some interesting results when looking through the lens of the ballot questions. Starting with the Legislative Audit and Psychedelics questions, they showed far less enthusiasm than other Precincts. But when it came to MCAS Repeal, Rideshare Unions and Full Minimum Wage, they were enthusiastic supporters. In fact, Precinct 8 was the only precinct to vote in favor of the Full Minimum Wage ballot question, outpacing the nearest precinct by a whopping 22.3%!

Thanks for reading through our analysis of the election! Let us know what you think or if you have any additional insights in the comments!