Thursday, 4:30 PM
Tsongas thanks voters, flies to Washington to override veto
(AP Photo/David H. Brow, Lowell Sun)
By Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff
Fresh off a 6-point victory over her Republican opponent, Niki Tsongas hopscotched across the Fifth Congressional District today, thanking voters in Lowell, greeting supporters in downtown Lawrence, and waving to passersby in Concord.
The Democrat plans to fly this evening to Washington, where she will be sworn in Thursday in the US House as Massachusetts' first woman in Congress in more than 25 years. Tsongas will take office in time to vote to override President Bush's veto of a bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
"It looks to me like it's close," Tsongas said today of the veto override, "but it shows you how every vote counts and why this election here was so important because first of all, it sends an additional vote. But second of all, I think it does put pressure on those who are reluctant to override the veto that there is a strong will in this country to have children's health insurance."
Tsongas defeated Republican Jim Ogonowski in a special election Tuesday that she tried to frame as a referendum on the Bush administration and the Iraq war. She garnered 51 percent of the vote, compared to 45 percent for Ogonowski, winning most strongly in the cities of Lowell and Lawrence and the southern towns of the district, such as Concord and Acton.
Tsongas will take the seat that was once held by her late husband, Paul Tsongas. She will immediately succeed Martin T. Meehan, a Democrat who resigned this summer during his eighth term to become chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.
The election results were certified this morning by Secretary of State William Galvin, who faxed a letter to the clerk of the US House.
