2014 gubernatorial results in Dorchester by precinct.: Click to open in larger screen.

Democrat wins capital, 104,759-47,584; Dorchester and Mattapan hike her count

The numbers always tell the story: Republican Charlie Baker won the governor’s seat on Tuesday with a statewide surge that allowed him to overcome a strong showing by Democrat Martha Coakley in the city of Boston, where she won by 66 percent to 30 percent, and in neighborhoods like Mattapan and Dorchester, where she piled up the votes.

With Coakley’s strong showing in Boston, Mayor Martin Walsh notched a decisive win for his organization following a tough primary loss by his candidate for attorney general, Warren Tolman, that had some observers questioning the organization’s strength.

“The mayor has, in fact, proven that the road to victory in Boston is through him. If any candidate wants to play well in Boston, they’ll need him,” said Dan Manning, a former Walsh field director, in an interview with the Reporter. The big Coakley win in the capital city – 104,759 votes to Baker’s 47,584 – came from a coalition of union support and neighborhood organizations that pulled out the vote in the city’s traditionally deep blue neighborhoods.

Coakley, who lived in the Neponset neighborhood in the 1990s, won all but two precincts in Dorchester, notching comfortable margins in most of them. Baker won the vote at the Kenny School up from Adams Corner by 113 votes, and the St. Brendan’s side of Florian Hall by 82 votes.

“Everyone was talking about Ward 16 and what was going to happen there,” Manning said on Wednesday. “Charlie Baker made inroads in that community, but we were very systematic in how we got out our vote yesterday. We just flooded the streets with bodies.” Manning credited Steve Bickerton, the campaign’s Dorchester neighborhood coordinator, with maintaining Coakley’s margins in the neighborhood.

In Ward 17’s Lower Mills Library, it was a Coakley victory, 959-286. In Savin Hill, Walsh’s home, she carried the day by a tally of 553-361. And at St. Mark’s, it was Coakley 994 to Baker’s 298.

In precincts where people of color dominate the voter list, Coakley ran up lopsided margins. She poured it on, gaining Deval Patrick-like margins against Baker in key voter-rich precincts: At the Chittick School on the Mattapan-Hyde Park line, it was a beatdown: 1,539-155. It was a similar story at the Hassan Apartments, a heavily Haitian-American voting spot off River Street where Coakley picked up 697 votes to Baker’s 57. In Ward 17’s Mildred Ave. School, it was Coakley 538, Baker 55.

“Hearing the results from Mattapan in particular, the huge numbers that Martha put up,” including the Hassan Apartments, “I was floored,” said state Rep. Dan Cullinane, who represents parts of Mattapan and Dorchester. “Those were big numbers that Martha and Democrats can be proud of in Boston.” Cullinane served as labor chair for the Coakley campaign.

Added Dan Manning: “We were all in for Martha Coakley and it’s frustrating, but sometimes you can only focus on areas that you’re responsible for and stay in your lane. If we had the ability to mobilize the entire state, we would.”

Statewide, the results suggest that Baker appealed to a wide swath of independent voters, while also picking up pockets of traditional Democratic support by campaigning in urban areas often written off by Republicans. He also had the support of a super PAC nationally funded by the Republican Governors Association that reportedly outspent Democrats in the gubernatorial race for governor by a 9-to-1 margin with a flurry of television ads and direct mail.

Down ticket, Democrats handily claimed victory in all the races. Maura Healey gained the attorney general’s office, making her the first openly gay attorney general in the country, Deb Goldberg won the treasurer’s race, and incumbents William Galvin, the secretary of state, and Suzanne Bump, the state auditor, were returned to office.

Dorchester legislators who faced opposition – state Rep. Evandro Carvalho and state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry – won easily as did Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins.

“While we’re disappointed in the result of the governor’s race, we can all take pride in what’s been done,” Cullinane said. On Beacon Hill, he added, “Transitions are transitions and I think both sides need to feel each other out, but both sides are committed to making Massachusetts great. I’m just excited to get in there and get back to work.”

Reporter Editor Bill Forry and the State House News Service contributed to this report.