Lori Trahan clinches reelection in 3rd Congressional District

LOWELL — U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan will serve a third term in Congress after besting Republican Dean Tran in the 3rd Congressional District on Tuesday.

Results were slow-rolling, but Trahan took commanding leads in nearly every town in the district. But by around 11:30 p.m., in her hometown of Lowell, Trahan earned more than four times the votes, garnering 7,475 votes to Tran’s 1,808, according to unofficial results released by town officials.

Fitchburg, where Tran is based, was a similar story. Trahan took an early lead at some of the available precincts there, and by the time unofficial results were released, Trahan overtook Tran in a 5,343 to 4,197 vote.

While there are still communities that have yet to announce full results, Tran did earn the majority of the vote in Ashby, Winchendon and Townsend, according to The New York Times. Every town south and east of those pockets of red, however, went bright blue.

Trahan, who is from Lowell and lives in Westford, acknowledged the win in a statement, in which she said she is ready to tackle the rising cost of living, among other key issues.

“The Third District is where I was born, where I was raised, and it’s where my husband and I are raising our two young girls,” Trahan wrote. “Representing the hardworking families that call our district home is the honor of a lifetime, and I’m grateful to every person who entrusted me with their vote in this election.”

While visiting the polls around Fitchburg, Tran said voters expressed concerns over “kitchen table issues,” like gas and electric prices, as well as “parental rights” in education.

“People are very mad at how the economy has been devastated, as well as that the country is in a situation where we’re seeing high rates of crime everywhere across the country, and overdose deaths from fentanyl are out of control,” Tran said. “I’ve been traveling across the district, as well as across the state, and people are just fed up.”

Trahan won by wide margins in the majority of the district, the widest being in Concord — although she leads in Lawrence substantially, only 7% of the votes there have been reported — according to the Times. The closest win for Trahan was in Westminster, where she is up by a margin of just 0.18, according to the Times.

On Election Day, Trahan said voters are “fearful of the Dobbs decision” and worried about access to reproductive healthcare, so she plans to protect those rights in her next term. She also noted that Congress has made important investments in climate and alternative energy, and she hopes to help people deal with high inflation.

“There’s so many issues, but I’m very clear-eyed around the inflation that people are feeling right now,” Trahan said. “And that’s our mandate when we go back to Congress, is to make sure that we’re doing everything we can do to relieve that pressure for families.”

Tran did not respond to multiple requests for comment.