In crowded District 7 field, Ahmed and Culpepper lead pack

There was a moment of jubilation in the Ashur Restaurant on Roxbury Street last night when Said “Coach” Ahmed learned he had narrowly won the 11-way preliminary vote for the District 7 City Council seat.

Then came the realization of what lies ahead.

“What we have done in the last nine months was nothing,” Ahmed said in an interview. “The work has just begun. We have to focus on the issues that really matter to our community.”

Ahmed garnered 1,155 votes to beat second-place finisher Miniard Culpepper’s 1,102. His 53-vote win came on the heels of a remarkably close-fought campaign season, during which five of the 11 candidates mounted well-resourced campaigns, raising tens of thousands of dollars.

Overall, it was a closely run race for the top five candidates, with just 100 votes separating the top finisher from the fifth when the votes were counted. Mavrick Afonso came in third, with 1,082 votes, just 20 behind Culpepper. Samuel Hurtado garnered 1,057 votes, and Said Abdikarim had 1,054 of the 7,349 votes in the city’s unofficial count. The other six candidates each finished with under 600 votes.

At his election night party at the Residence Inn, Culpepper said he is ready to reach out to voters.

“The people of District 7 have spoken,” he said. “I see hope. People are excited. People who hadn’t voted in years told me they were going to vote. I think we’ll see a new District 7.”

With Ahmed and Culpepper together receiving less than a third of the total votes cast, they will now likely compete not only for votes that went to the other nine candidates, but also for the broader universe of more than 10,000 voters who will likely turn out for the general election.

District 7 turnout this year was slightly lower than during the preliminary in the last mayoral election in 2021, when 7,626 voters cast ballots. In that race, Tania Fernandes Anderson, who this year resigned from the Council after pleading guilty to federal corruption charges, faced off against seven candidates and won the preliminary balloting with 2,038 votes, more than 700 votes ahead of second-place finisher Rev. Roy Owens.

Ahmed’s campaign manager, Yousif Abdallah, said he would remove signs Wednesday from the polling sites in the Roxbury, Dorchester, South End and Fenway polling places in District 7.

“Tomorrow, we take a rest day,” Abdallah told supporters gathered at Ashur restaurant. “Thursday, we’re on doors again.”

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