Population 2010

181,045

Population 2020

206,518

Registered Voters

107,686

Republicans

8,583

Democrat

44,656

Minor Party

No Party

49,487

Municipalities

CitiesPopulation 
Fitchburg41,946
Gardner21,287
Leominster48,782
Southbridge17,740
Worcester206.518
Ashburnham6,315
Athol11,945
Auburn16,889
Barre5,530
Berlin3,158 
Blackstone9,208
Bolton5,665
Boylston4,849
Brookfield3,439
Charlton13,315
Clinton15,428
Douglas8,983
Dudley11,921
East Brookfield2,224
Grafton19,664
Hardwick2,667
Harvard6,851 
Holden19,905
Hopedale6,017
Hubbardston4,328

Superintendent of Schools

Treasurer / Tax Collector

County Commission

Election District 1Joshua C. Nordstrom
Election District 2Diana Purnell
Election District 3James C. "Bud" Church
Election District 4Theodore J. Elder
Election District 5Anthony W. Bertino, Jr.
Election District 6Madison J. Bunting, Jr.
Election District 7Joseph M. Mitrecic

School Board

Brief Political History

Worcester is governed by a council–manager government, with a popularly elected mayor. A city council acts as the legislative body, and the council-appointed manager handles the traditional day-to-day chief executive functions.

City councilors can run as either a representative of a city district or as an at-large candidate. The winning at-large candidate who receives the greatest number of votes for mayor becomes the mayor (at-large councilor candidates must ask to be removed from the ballot for mayor if they do not want to be listed on the mayoral ballot). As a result, voters must vote for their mayoral candidate twice, once as an at-large councilor, and once as the mayor. The mayor has no more authority than other city councilors, but is the ceremonial head of the city and chair of the city council and school committee. Currently, there are 11 councilors: 6 at-large and 5 district.

Worcester's first charter, which went into effect in 1848, established a Mayor/Bicameral form of government. Together, the two chambers—the 11-member Board of Aldermen and the 30-member Common Council—were vested with complete legislative powers. The mayor handled all administrative departments, though appointments to those departments had to be approved by the two-chamber City Council.

Worcester's history of social progressivism includes a number of temperance and abolitionist movements. It was a leader in the women's suffrage movement: The first national convention advocating women's rights was held in Worcester on October 23–24, 1850.

Two of the nation's most radical abolitionists, Abby Kelley Foster and her husband Stephen S. Foster, adopted Worcester as their home, as did Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the editor of The Atlantic Monthly and Emily Dickinson's avuncular correspondent, and Unitarian minister Rev. Edward Everett Hale.

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