Incumbent Republican state Sen. Peter Durant was leading challenger Shannon Teabo as vote counting continued into Wednesday morning in the race for the Worcester and Hampshire district seat, even as Teabo dominated the ballot in Worcester's own precincts. The count was described as standing at 86% as of 7:15 a.m. Wednesday, with final, certified numbers still not in hand.
A Partial Count, Not a Final Word
That 86% figure comes from a snapshot reported by The Telegram & Gazette, and it reflects only a point-in-time tally rather than a verified final result. Durant, a Republican from Spencer, is seeking a third term representing the district. He first won the seat in a 2023 special election, defeating then-Democratic state Rep. Jonathan Zlotnik, according to WBUR, a victory that made him the first Republican to hold the seat in more than five decades and pushed the Senate's GOP caucus up to four members.
Within Worcester itself, though, the numbers tell a very different story. Teabo, a West Brookfield Democrat and first-time candidate, pulled in 3,497 votes, or 63.03%, across the city's six precincts in the district, compared with 2,039 votes, or 36.75%, for Durant, per The Worcester Guardian. The outlet was careful to note that those figures cover only Worcester's six precincts in the district and do not settle the districtwide contest.
Results Still Unofficial
Worcester had finished reporting results from all 62 of its city precincts, but the same report cautions that election-night totals there remain unofficial pending certification. The Gardner News carried a similar caveat on its own election-results coverage, noting that all results are preliminary until the certification process wraps up in the days following the election.
Outside Christ the King Church on Pleasant Street in Worcester the day before the election, Teabo supporter Gary Hunter was out holding a sign for the challenger. Hunter said Teabo wants to change the way the state legislature operates and pushed back against the current system in which the Senate president effectively holds the position for life. He also pointed to the legislature's reputation, saying it has been rated among the country's most inefficient.
A Legislature Known for Gridlock
That reputation has data behind it. A FiscalNote analysis found Massachusetts had the lowest legislative bill-enactment rate of any state in 2023, passing just 21 of 10,508 introduced bills, a rate of 0.20%, according to This Week in Worcester. For comparison, the outlet reported Minnesota's enacted rate that year was 1.39%, while Texas enacted 41.8% of its submitted bills and New York enacted 14.15%.
Durant was also notable this cycle simply for having a race at all. He was the only member of the Senate's five-member Republican caucus to draw a challenger, facing off against Teabo, who entered the race endorsed by Progressive Mass and the Massachusetts Working Families Party, according to MassterList. That scarcity of contested seats fits a broader pattern: the outlet reported that 75% of state Senate districts and about 70% of House districts statewide had only one name on the general-election ballot this year, and that Ballotpedia ranked Massachusetts second-to-last nationally for legislative race competitiveness, an uptick from dead last in each of the previous five cycles.
With the Worcester and Hampshire seat still undecided by any certified count, the full outcome of the Durant-Teabo race remains to be finalized.
