 A significant number of Republicans were Masons; some were members of the Portuguese Carbonária, a hard-core activist group which became "a state within the state".By 1907 there was a strong (and growing) republican presence in the cities of Lisbon and Porto, where the Portuguese Republican Party had already won local elections and intended to promote a republican government at the national level.In 1906 elections the party only received 2.7 percent of the vote, equivalent to four seats in the National Assembly.