by John Osborn
Harvard voters turned out in near record numbers on Tuesday, March 1, handing victories to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the town's Democratic and Republican Presidential Primaries.
Clinton won 50.9 percent of the 1,611 votes cast by Harvard Democrats, leaving Bernie Sanders two points behind with 48.7 percent of the vote. It was a pattern repeated in a number of nearby suburban towns, including Boxborough, Stow, Acton, and Concord. But elsewhere in central Massachusetts, Sanders carried the day, with victories in Bolton, Littleton, Ayer, Groton, and most remaining towns in Worcester County. Worcester city, Auburn, and Shrewsbury, however, went for Clinton.
In the Republican primary, Harvard voters chose Donald Trump over John Kasich, 33.0 to 27.4 percent, with Marco Rubio trailing at 22.9 percent of the vote. Statewide, Trump's margin was huge. At 11:20 p.m. on Tuesday, with more than three-quarters of the ballots counted, Trump could claim 48.9 percent of votes cast in the Massachusetts Republican primary, Kasich and Rubio were tied for second place with 18 percent of the vote apiece. Among Harvard's neighbors, only Acton broke the pattern, favoring Kasich over Trump 32.5 percent to 28.2.
Of Harvard’s 3,934 registered voters, 2,447 or 62 percent took part in the primaries, a percentage point less than the turnout for the historic 2008 Presidential Primary. Two-thirds (1,611) of Harvard voters cast ballots in the Democratic primary, while the rest (830) took part in the Republican primary.