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Gomez Wins Republican Nomination

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A son of Columbian immigrants and a first time candidate has won the Republican nomination to run in the Massachusetts special election for the U.S. Senate seat previously held by John Kerry.

Gabriel Gomez, a former Navy SEAL and a successful businessman, won the three way Republican primary with just over 50 percent of the vote. In the June 25th special election the newcomer to politics will face Democrat Ed Markey, who has been a Congressman for 36 years. Gomez in the campaign played up his compelling personal story and his lack of experience in politics. But he also out spent his opponents, Michael Sullivan and Dan Winslow, and benefited from the support of a Super PAC helmed by former aids to Mitt Romney.  Gomez has called for reforming Congress. He wants a lifetime ban on former reps and senators becoming lobbyists and he supports term limits.

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.