Looks like it’ll be Mike Barrett vs. Sandi Martinez for the right to replace retiring state Sen. Susan Fargo as the Third Middlesex District’s next state senator. 

According to the unofficial numbers Thursday night, Barrett, a Lexington resident, bested a field of four other Democrats, including Chelmsford's Alex Buck.

Martinez, also of Chelmsford, defeated Republican opponent Greg Howes.

Interest is almost always high around an open seat, and true to form, the Third Middlesex race heated up early and the field and plots thickened over the winter, spring and summer. 

Martinez has challenged Fargo in the past and was a presumed opponent. But the first new candidates to emerge were Howes, a Concord resident, and Lexington's Barrett, both of whom announced their intentions to run prior to Fargo going public with her retirement plans.

Eventually, the field swelled to seven as five more Democrats – Concord residents Mara Dolan and Joe Kearns Goodwin, Weston’s Joe Mullen and Alex Buck of Chelmsford—all declared their candidacy. 

And when all seven appeared at a League of Women Voters candidates forum last month in Concord, the turnout was so large the local fire department have to ask more than 100 from the crowd to leave the venue to comply with code.

As primary results poured in, Barrett and Goodwin raced out ahead of the field, though each candidate except Dolan carried his or her hometown (Goodwin took theirs). It looks like Barrett's decisive victories in Lexington, where he earned 1,248 votes to Goodwin's 228 and in Bedford, that could have been the deciding factor.

The race was called a little earlier on the Republican side, as Martinez outpaced Howes in a number of communities, including Waltham, Weston and her hometown of Chelmsford.