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This is what it’s like in the Mass. towns with the closest presidential election results
Residents say rallying around local issues helps them find common ground.
Fran Frederick, a school adjustment counselor at Belchertown High School, often tells students “you have more in common with the person sitting next to you in your high school classroom than you will probably have with any group of people for the rest of your life.”
“How do we focus on what we have in common more than what we have that’s different?” she asks them.
Relating to one another through common experiences serves as a way to bring people together, Frederick says.
“We have more in common than we do different because we all live in the same town in western Massachusetts,” she told Boston.com.
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While Vice President Kamala Harris won Massachusetts decisively with just over 61% of the vote, many towns in the state saw much tighter results. In Royalston, the candidates were exactly tied, according to unofficial results, with 390 votes for Trump, and 390 votes for Harris.
In Bridgewater, Trump won with 50% of the vote, compared to Harris’s 49%. Still, Debbie Johnson, the Republican registrar for the town, says she has not seen any “real tension” in her community.
“People have their differences, but it’s not as divisive as it is throughout the country,” Johnson told Boston.com.
Not that there aren’t conflicts to be found. In Billerica — where Trump and Harris each got about 49% of the vote — chairman of the Republican Town Committee Anthony Ventresca said the town’s political divide has led to stolen political signs and tension at town meetings.
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“Sometimes sides get a little too dug in,” he told Boston.com.
Mass. municipalities with the closest presidential election results
These are the Massachusetts cities and towns where neither major presidential candidate won over 50% of the vote as of Nov. 6, according to unofficial results.| Town | Percent Trump | Percent Harris |
|---|---|---|
| Billerica | 49 | 49 |
| Bridgewater | 50 | 49 |
| Dartmouth | 49 | 49 |
| East Longmeadow | 49 | 49 |
| Fairhaven | 49 | 50 |
| Granby | 49 | 49 |
| Mendon | 48 | 50 |
| Methuen | 49 | 50 |
| Millbury | 50 | 49 |
| Northbridge | 50 | 48 |
| Orange | 50 | 48 |
| Peru | 47 | 49 |
| Plainville | 47 | 50 |
| Revere | 47 | 50 |
| Rockland | 49 | 49 |
| Royalston | 49 | 49 |
| Salisbury | 50 | 48 |
| Savoy | 49 | 50 |
| Seekonk | 50 | 49 |
| Southbridge | 48 | 50 |
| Taunton | 48 | 50 |
| Tweksbury | 50 | 48 |
| Tyngsborough | 48 | 50 |
| West Brookfield | 50 | 48 |
| West Springfield | 49 | 49 |
| Westminster | 50 | 48 |
| Whitman | 50 | 48 |
In a town where Donald Trump won by just six votes, Frederick, chair of the West Springfield Democratic Committee, says many of her family members disagree with her political views.
“They’re my family, so I can’t just reject them based on their political beliefs, nor do they reject me based on mine,” she said.
Still, Frederick says she yearns for a time when neighbors helped neighbors, despite their political leanings.
“I think this is something that we’ve lost, that I would like to see us get back to,” she said. “When I look at people, I look at them as my neighbors, and I think that if we could do more of that across the board in our country, everyone would be much better off.”
Just over two hours northeast of West Springfield, Trump won in Salisbury 50% to 48%.
Salisbury resident Derek DePetrillo said that the town “may be divided politically, but when it comes to getting things done and working together, that never stands as an issue.”
“We go to town meetings and everyone comes together because it’s a local issue,” DePetrillo, chair of the Salisbury Democratic Committee, told Boston.com. “We’re all working for a local concern.”
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Marshall Maguire, chairman of the Salisbury Republican Town Committee, said for the most part, residents get along with each other because everyone wants “what’s best for our town.”
“We try to work together,” Maguire told Boston.com. “In the end, we still need to try to get funding for the roads and funding for beach erosion and all of those things.”
At the town’s single polling location on Election Day, John Housianitis, another Salisbury resident, said he saw a group of people supporting Democratic candidates together standing directly across from the Republican supporters.
“Generally, it was a pretty decent and fair atmosphere,” Housianitis told Boston.com.
DePetrillo said the town has come together since the election results were announced.
“Once the election’s over, it’s over,” he said. “I don’t agree with the vote, but at the end of the day, we move on.”
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