New Bedford Election 2025: Roy’s At-Large Win and Ward 2 Upset

NEW BEDFORD (WBSM) — With an open seat on the New Bedford City Council at stake in Tuesday’s election, civics teacher James Roy had an especially impressive showing, not only winning the two-year seat but coming in with the second-highest vote tally of any of the council candidates.

At-Large Councilor Race Breakdown

The unofficial vote totals show that Roy finished with 3,872 votes, second only to perennial top vote-getter Ian Abreu (4,629) and almost a hundred votes ahead of the third-place finisher, Shane Burgo (3,781).

Longtime Councilor Brian Gomes was fourth with 3,430 votes, and despite finishing outside the top five in October’s preliminary election, incumbent Naomi Carney made a comeback and garnered 3,270 votes to remain on the council.

With veteran Councilor at Large Linda Morad opting not to seek re-election, that meant there was an open seat in that race, and Roy took advantage, edging out all of the other challengers: Devin Byrnes (3,146 votes), Jennifer Arruda (2,796), Christopher Cotter (1,958), Ian Saunders (1,386) and Shaun Mulvey (1,302).

New Bedford Ward Race Results

In the ward races, Ward 2 saw an upset as challenger Scott Pemberton (453 votes) defeated incumbent Maria Giesta (436).

The two other contested ward races saw the incumbent win re-election. In Ward 1, Leo Choquette (1,428 votes) defeated challenger Matthew Marko (573), and in Ward 5, Joseph Lopes (1,119) edged out R. Renee Fernandes (881).

Ward 3 Councilor Shawn Oliver (726 votes), Ward 4 Councilor Derek Baptiste (847) and Ward 6 Councilor Ryan Pereira (709) all ran unopposed and were re-elected to another two-year term.

New Bedford School Committee Results

Incumbent New Bedford School Committee member Melissa Costa won re-election with 4,831 votes. After fellow incumbents Colleen Dawicki and Ross Grace opted not to seek re-election, that meant there were two open seats. Richard Porter (3,536 votes) and Von Marie Moniz (3,310) won those seats, finishing ahead of Marcus Coward (3,182).

In the assessor’s race, Peter Berthiaume (5,721 votes) ran unopposed and was re-elected to another six-year term.

Voter Turnout Doubles From Preliminary Election

After managing just a 5.77 percent voter turnout in October’s preliminary election, the final election had a turnout of 11.32 percent, with 8,390 votes cast out of 74,089 registered voters in the city.