Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse will take on former City Councilor Jay Ferreira in November. They led a field of four candidates in Tuesday's preliminary election.
Morse finished with 56 percent of the vote. Ferreira's 28 percent was good enough to earn him the second spot on the November ballot. Michael Siciliano and Paul Bowes finished well behind.
The winner will get a four-year term as mayor, instead of the current two years. Holyoke voters approved that change in 2015.
Turnout across the city was under 14 percent, far short of City Clerk Brenna Murphy McGee's 24 percent prediction on Monday.
Edgar Rodriguez did not want to say who he voted for, but he cast a ballot. He always does, he said, calling it the "law" in his house.
"Those people who don't vote, they should have no right to complain," he said.
Rodriguez voted at the Falcetti Towers apartment building. Larry Ryan was the polling place warden there, and on Tuesday morning he was disappointed but not surprised by how few voters had showed up.
"I think [it's] a shame, because the primary to me is more serious than waiting for the last two [candidates]," Ryan said.
Sitting at a bus stop near the polling place, Armando Nortez was still undecided about who to support. He said he was leaning away from Morse, but knew little about the other candidates.
"I don't know these people from a stamp," Nortez said with a laugh. "We don't have a whole lot of choices here. It was the same thing with the presidential election. So I was like, 'What? Nobody wants the job?'"
