Massachusetts Governor Deval L. Patrick ’78 won reelection on Tuesday night, although many of his fellow Democrats were unseated across the nation.

Patrick had garnered 49 percent of the vote, handily defeating Republican challenger Charles D. Baker ’79, who received 42 percent of the vote, with 96 percent of precincts reporting. The remaining votes went to Independent candidate Timothy P. Cahill and Green-Rainbow Party candidate Jill E. Stein ’73.

In general, Patrick took the major metropolitan districts of the state, while Baker proved popular in rural areas.

Patrick won Cambridge with 82.1 percent of the vote, according to Cambridge Election Commission Volunteer Daniel A. Schockett. In Cambridge, 54 percent of registered voters cast ballots in Tuesday’s midterm election.

The incumbent governor also carried Boston, garnering 70 percent of the vote.

Former Boston City Councillor Lawrence S. DiCara ’71, who said he continues to follow local politics closely, attributed Baker’s loss to his attacks on Cahill.

“He lost some time and money doing so,” DiCara said. “He should’ve ignored Cahill. Attacking him strengthened Cahill’s resolve to stay in the race.”

DiCara said that Cahill ultimately attracted some of the “angry voters” that would have gone for Baker.

Patrick’s victory was a hard-fought one, with pundits predicting earlier this week that he would win yesterday’s election by a margin of just a few points.

“If I’d listened to pundits and pollsters four years ago, I wouldn’t be in this job,” Patrick said in an interview with The Crimson two weeks ago.

Patrick’s top priorities for 2011 are to create jobs, reduce health care costs, reform education, and address youth violence, he told the Boston Globe earlier this week.

“I believe in leadership that is about asking people to turn to each other and not on each other. And I see in my opposition exactly the opposite,” Patrick told The Crimson.

According to his campaign, during his first term, Patrick facilitated the creation of 60,000 local jobs and implemented a series of education reforms that made it easier to shut down failing schools and increased access to charter schools in poorly performing districts.

“The second term is about finishing that work,” Patrick told The Crimson. “It’s about finishing what we started.”

—Staff writer Sofia E. Groopman can be reached at segroopm@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Julie M. Zauzmer can be reached at jzauzmer@college.harvard.edu.