Battle in special election for state senate seat razor close
State Representative Linda Dorcena Forry, a Haitian-American from Dorchester, appeared late Tuesday to have won the Democratic nomination for the 1st Suffolk Senate seat, long dominated by Irish-American men from South Boston.
Results from the City of Boston shortly after 10 p.m. showed Forry holding a lead of 378 votes over South Boston state Representative Nick Collins. A total of 21,730 votes were cast in the three-way Democratic primary, which also included South Boston native Maureen Dahill.
Forry stood on stage at the Phillips Old Colony House just after 10 p.m. and declared victory in the Democratic primary for the 1st Suffolk state Senate seat. As of 10:15, Collins had yet to appear at the Blarney Stone, where supporters had gathered.
About an hour after the polls closed, the Associated Press declared Collins the winner, but by 10:30, they had uncalled the race.
The Forry campaign meanwhile remained insistent that their campaign held a slight lead.
As the Democratic candidate in a heavily Democratic district, the winner of the primary is expected to coast to a general election victory and replace State Senator John A. Hart Jr., a South Boston Democrat, who resigned in January to take a job at a law firm. The winner will face Dorchester native Joseph Anthony Ureneck, the sole Republican to file for the primary, in the general election.
Wesley Lowery can be reached at wesley.lowery@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @wesleylowery.
