Cabral triumphs in sheriff's race

Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral, the first African-American woman to hold a Suffolk County office and the state's first female sheriff, soundly defeated Boston City Councilor Stephen J. Murphy last night to retain her post.

With all precincts reporting, Cabral led Murphy 60 percent to 40 percent.

Cabral's victory appeared to be the latest illustration of the nascent political might of Boston's black and Hispanic communities and the increasing willingness of white voters to elect minority candidates. Many doubted that Cabral could overcome a well-connected white opponent such as Murphy, but as Councilor Felix D. Arroyo did last year, she seemed to have ridden a coalition of minorities and white liberals to victory.

''It was the turnout of people in communities of color that did it for me," Cabral said in her victory speech last night. ''The people decided to vote for leadership."

There is no Republican candidate, so Cabral's victory in the Democratic primary means that she will remain sheriff. Acting Governor Jane M. Swift appointed her to the post in 2002.

The outcome also means that Murphy will remain on the City Council and that Patricia H. White, the daughter of former mayor Kevin H. White who finished fifth in last year's race for the four at-large City Council seats, will not replace him. White, who said last night she wasn't following the sheriff's race, promised another run for the council in 2005.

The Cabral-Murphy race split the City Council and prompted a slew of high-profile endorsements, with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini throwing their weight behind Cabral in the closing days of the campaign. Murphy was backed by US Representative Stephen F. Lynch of South Boston and the Rev. Eugene Rivers, a well-known leader in Boston's black community .

There were also 39 contested primaries for State House and Senate seats yesterday, several of them in the Boston area. In the Eighth Suffolk District -- a district that includes part of Cambridge, but is mainly composed of the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the West End -- Marty Walz, 43 and a lawyer and vice president of a literacy and mentoring program for at-risk preschoolers, defeated Kristine Glynn, 34 and a former legislative aide, winning about 75 percent of the vote, according to preliminary returns.

In the 26th Middlesex District, which includes parts of Cambridge and Somerville, Representative Timothy J. Toomey narrowly defeated challenger Avi Green, a 30-year-old graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School.

The fight for Suffolk County sheriff was the area's most hotly contested campaign. The sheriff's position is widely viewed as a political plum, coming with a $107,000 salary, a $90 million budget, a six-year term, and the opportunity to cultivate a powerful political base among the roughly 1,100 employees at the Suffolk House of Correction and Nashua Street Jail.

Cabral, 44, who briefly switched to the Republican Party to win Swift's appointment, but then was wooed back to the Democrats by the likes of Kennedy, attacked Murphy's lack of law enforcement experience. She worked for 18 years as a prosecutor, including a nine-year stint as an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County. She portrayed Murphy, who has also run for state representative and state treasurer, as a career politician unqualified for the job.

But Murphy, 47, countered that the job of sheriff demands management skills, not a background in criminal justice. Cabral's predecessor, Richard Rouse, left the post amid allegations of mismanagement and inmate abuse.

Even Cabral's supporters feared that she would wilt in the face of Murphy's political skill. This was her first campaign, while Murphy received more than 30,500 votes in his last council race. Murphy is the portrait of the traditional Boston politician, and he called in all his political chits in his campaign against Cabral. With his connections and Irish surname, he figured to run strongly in vote-rich areas such as South Boston and West Roxbury.

But the old rules don't necessarily apply in the ''New Boston," where the 2000 census showed that the city is majority-minority for the first time.

Murphy did win South Boston handily, but he barely bested Cabral in mostly white West Roxbury and his own neighborhood of Hyde Park. Cabral triumphed easily in areas such as Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. The candidates roughly split the vote in Revere, Chelsea and Winthrop.

''This shows that the New Boston we talk about is real. No matter what race or gender or ethnicity, the voters will vote for someone who is qualified," said Representative Marie St. Fleur, a Dorchester Democrat who was born in Haiti. ''The entire African-American community came together and came out strong for her, and the entire white community came together and came out for her."

City Councilor Felix Arroyo said the results prove that ''no matter who you are, if you're qualified, politics is open to you."

Juan Martinez, executive director of MassVOTE, a nonpartisan group that seeks to boost voter turnout, said activists have been able to register thousands of black, Hispanic, and Asian voters since 2002.

''All this work, all these new registered voters, the good weather, all these things combined," Martinez said when asked to explain Cabral's victory. ''We're starting to see the transition, we're starting to see the shift in voting power back to communities where it should be."

Even Murphy acknowledged the shift in his concession speech last night, saying, ''Today we saw a demonstration of the vibrancy of our city and county."

Interest in the Cabral-Murphy race appeared to push Boston's voter turnout above the roughly 10 percent mark projected for the state as a whole. By 6 p.m. yesterday, more than 14 percent of the city's registered voters had already cast ballots. The lowest turnout in recent years was in the 2000 primary, when only 6 percent of Suffolk County voters went to the polls.

Early in the day, Cabral supporters charged that some election workers in Brighton were prompting elderly voters to vote for Murphy. But Brian McNiff, a spokesman for Secretary of State William F. Galvin, said his department investigated the complaint and found that workers were simply translating the ballot for non-English-speakers.

Andrea Estes of the Globe staff and Globe correspondents Elise Castelli and Heather Allen contributed to this report.