PLYMOUTH – US Representative William R. Keating says he couldn’t be happier with his new congressional district, which in last year’s redistricting lost Quincy and six surrounding towns. The 9th Congressional District of Massachusetts now includes New Bedford, America's most profitable fishing port, and eight other south coast communities.
With the addition of the south coast, the New Bedford-Fall River area is the district’s largest urban center. Bristol District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter, a Fall River Democrat, has already declared his intention to run in the Sept. 6 Democratic primary.
Another Democrat, former state senator Robert A. O’Leary of Barnstable, who finished 1,300 votes, or 2 percentage points, behind Keating in the 2010 Democratic race, is considering running again.
Slow population growth forced Massachusetts lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional map, eliminating one of 10 districts. In the process, the Legislature created a minority-majority district centered in Boston and crafted the 9th District to give more clout to a growing region that for decades has been represented in Congress by politicians from Boston or nearby inner suburbs
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