Arroyo win hailed as political bellwether

Latinos, blacks, and Asians turned out in impressive numbers on Tuesday, reversing a long-term trend where minority voters have been far less likely than whites to get to the polls, an analysis of election results shows.

Overall turnout was about what it was in 1999, the last time council races were on the ballot without a mayoral race. But that belies huge changes in who voted, as Arroyo's base of minority voters came together with white liberals to send him to victory.

Voting was up 78 percent in the 38 precincts with the largest proportions of black voters, up 76 percent in the 10 most-Latino precincts, and up 83 percent in the five precincts with the biggest percentage of Asian voters. Meanwhile, turnout dropped 12.5 percent in the 36 precincts with the largest white populations, according to a BostonVOTE analysis, which correlated precinct-by-precinct voter tallies with racial and ethnic data from the 2000 Census.

"It's a landmark race, in terms of the electorate and who votes," said George Pillsbury, policy director of BostonVOTE, a not-for-profit research group that promotes voter participation. "Anyone who runs for office in the city of Boston is going to have to think differently about their campaign, given what happened in this race."

For a man whose political livelihood was uncertain just days ago, Arroyo's change in fortunes is astounding. Already, Councilor Maura Hennigan is talking about supporting an Arroyo run for council president. Mel King, who made a strong run for mayor in 1983, is discussing him as a potential mayoral candidate.

Arroyo, who narrowly lost a 2001 bid for an at-large seat, sparked hope in Boston's minority community in January when he replaced Francis "Mickey" Roach, who left the council to become Suffolk County register of deeds. But many had worried that Arroyo was in danger of losing Tuesday.

His winning by such an unexpectedly large margin has reignited hope among liberal and minority leaders for a new dynamic in city politics, in which the same group that united behind Arroyo can challenge council leaders and Mayor Thomas M. Menino on items they choose.

"My hope is that this is a turning point in city politics and a wake-up call for some of the moderates on the City Council," said Joyce Ferriabough, a Boston political consultant. "This is the kind of coalition that needs to continue to flex its muscles."

Arroyo's big burst appears to have come from concerted efforts by minority and progressive voters to keep him in office. He also benefited from increased interest generated by a close race in heavily minority District Four, which includes parts of Mattapan and Dorchester, as well as the candidacy of fellow progressive Hennigan, who brought white Arroyo voters to the polls.

Not since the civil rights era has Boston seen a jump in minority participation of this magnitude, Pillsbury said. It helped Arroyo move from fifth place in the preliminary race, a result that would have left him off the council, to second in the final. Arroyo became the first Latino elected to the council and the first minority member elected to a city-wide council seat since the current system of district and at-large seats began in 1983. He came just 1,700 votes short of being the city's leading vote-getter.

Arroyo hasn't committed to running for any other offices, and he appears more likely to concentrate on his first full term as a councilor than look to move up in the near future.

Winning in his own right could change Arroyo and make the veteran community activist more likely to work cooperatively with other councilors, said Lawrence DiCara, a former city councilor.

"He will be his own man and will have a clean slate, in terms of his positions," DiCara said. "There's great power in having won one's own election."

Arroyo appears to have benefited only marginally from the endorsement of Council President Michael F. Flaherty in the closing weeks of the campaign. While Arroyo picked up votes in overwhelmingly white neighborhods where Flaherty was strong, like South Boston and West Roxbury, the benefit appeared to be small.

In the September preliminary election, about 4 percent of South Boston voters chose Arroyo among their candidates, for example. That number jumped to about 8 percent in the final tally, a noticeable difference, but not by itself the deciding factor, Pillsbury said.

Steve Crawford, a Flaherty campaign spokesman, credited Arroyo with the victory, but added that the council president was glad to be able to help a friend. "Felix gained in Flaherty strongholds, and Flaherty gained in Arroyo strongholds," Crawford said.

The turnout turnaround was most dramatic in District Four, where incumbent Charles C. Yancey faced a spirited challenge from Ego E. Ezedi Jr. In Wards 14 and 17, which make up much of the district, voter participation more than doubled, compared to four years ago.

Participation in Ward 17 -- Ashmont Hills, Codman Square, and Melville Park -- topped 30 percent. That's just a few percentage points behind turnout in West Roxbury and South Boston, historically the city's highest-voting neighborhoods. Arroyo also got a boost from high turnout among Hennigan's voting base, white liberal voters who would be more likely to support a Latino candidate, Pillsbury said.

The dramatic percentage increases in voter participation in minority neighborhoods since 1999 are so large partly because the base of voters was small to begin with. But the trend was unmistakeable in Tuesday's race, minority leaders said.

Months ago, as Arroyo's top campaign aides huddled in Councilor Chuck Turner's district office to discuss strategy, everyone in the room believed that an Arroyo win was possible. They had to look no further than the 2000 Census, which showed Boston to be a majority-minority city for the first time in its history.

"There was an incredible belief that the only reason why it wouldn't happen would be if we didn't do the work," said King, who was at the meeting and helped devise Arroyo's plan of attack. "There was a sense that it was in our hands. That infected, contagiously, lots of other people."

The campaign's main message was that it was important for the black and Latino communities to have a minority member represent Boston as an at-large councilor. Yancey, Arroyo, and Turner talked of themselves as a team in radio and newspaper advertisements and launched high-profile challenges to both the leadership of Flaherty and Governor Mitt Romney to garner headlines.

Turner, King, and others encouraged bullet voting, in which voters would choose Arroyo but no other candidates, to give him as much of a lift as they could. A range of groups, from Green Party and Rainbow Party regulars to the Chinese Progressive Association and Oiste?, a Latino political organizing group, lent support in get-out-the-vote efforts. Arroyo's fifth-place finish served as a wake-up call for more intense action.

With Arroyo's victory behind them, minority leaders say they hope to dissect what went right. If the same forces can be channeled, minority residents will never see their needs ignored by politicians again, said Darnell Williams, president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts.

"This is a signal of what could happen," Williams said. "The challenge for us as a community is, how do we maintain those numbers? This kind of turnout has to happen regularity, so it becomes expected."

Globe correspondent Sasha Talcott contributed to this report. Rick Klein can be reached at rklein@globe.com.