BY NOW YOU may have seen the New York Times map of the United States covered with tiny, red arrows pointing to the right, like weathervanes. The map shows the shift in the vote in this year’s presidential election compared to 2020. The sea of red arrows pointing right mark counties where Donald Trump’s share of the vote increased since 2020. The smattering of blue arrows, showing where Vice President Kamala Harris made gains over Joe Biden’s vote four years ago, barely register. 

Make no mistake, 2024 was a bad election for Democrats. But it wasn’t as bad as that map, and the accompanying takes, make it out to be. That’s because the 2020 election was an outlier, a high water mark for Democrats that should not be used as a yardstick for future contests. Here in Massachusetts, this year’s results are much more on par, in terms of turnout and outcome, with every other presidential election so far this century besides 2020. In that way, they represent more of a reversion to the mean than a shift to the right.

Probably the best explanation for the strong Democratic showing in 2020 is the simplest: Trapped at home and frustrated with Trump’s COVID response, Democrats voted in huge numbers, swamping past turnout records. The pandemic was by far the number one issue in 2020 exit polls, far outpacing the economy, and two thirds of Massachusetts voters thought Biden would handle it better. With COVID in the rearview mirror, turnout is back to normal, and voters, as they did the world over, punished the incumbent party for post-pandemic inflation.

The 2020 spike in turnout here in Massachusetts is obvious when comparing it to other presidential elections. The chart of raw vote figures shows this most clearly. The overall trend is a steady increase in total votes, interrupted by a huge spike in Democratic voters in 2020. If any of these elections were being compared to 2020, they would look like a rightward lurch. The red arrows on that national New York Times map are pointing more away from what happened in 2020 than at what happened this year. 

Harris won Massachusetts by a 24.5-point margin based on mostly complete but still unofficial counts. That’s down sharply from Joe Biden’s 33.5-point landslide four years ago, but in line with a conventional Democratic margin of victory for a Bay State presidential contest. Indeed, Biden was the only candidate with a margin over 30 points over the last 7 presidential contests.

In many ways, 2024, looks closer to 2016 than 2020. This year saw slightly more total votes than 2016, and so accordingly both candidates received more votes than in 2016 in most towns. It’s the towns where Harris and Trump lost votes that tells the clearest story of what changed this cycle. 

Harris lost votes in the state’s biggest cities when compared to 2016. In Boston, she got 15 percent fewer votes than Hillary Clinton did in 2016; in Springfield, 18 percent fewer; in Holyoke, 20 percent. In Fall River, which Donald Trump won outright, she got 20 percent fewer votes than Clinton in 2016. In the Latino-heavy cities of Everett, Chelsea, Revere, and Lynn, she underperformed 2016 by 17 percent to 25 percent. 

Harris also underperformed in towns with large college populations. Her vote total was down 28 percent  compared to 2016 in Amherst, home to the flagship UMass campus, Amherst College, and Hampshire College. Harris still got 10 times more votes than Trump there, who also lost votes there compared to 2016. Still, the decline in votes for Harris may signal a protest against the Biden administration’s policy on the Israel-Hamas war. 

Trump also got more votes in most communities across the state compared to 2016, including in the major cities where Democratic votes declined. Trump’s biggest loss of votes came in Amherst (down 31 percent). Everywhere else he lost votes it was less than 10 percent of his 2016 total, mostly in liberal and well-off suburbs north and west of Boston, including Belmont, Concord, Lexington, Carlisle, Acton, and Melrose. He also saw declines in Provincetown and other towns at the tip of the Cape, and a few towns in Western Massachusetts. All these losses were smaller, both as a percentage and in terms of raw votes, than Harris’s double-digit declines in the cities.

Trump also gained raw votes in many of the cities where Harris lost ground, especially those with sizable Latino populations. The shift of the Latino vote towards Trump began in 2020 and accelerated in 2024, both nationally and here in Massachusetts. Lawrence, the state’s most Latino city, has already received much attention for its shift towards Trump. 

Looking at the raw vote totals underscores how dramatic that shift was. In 2024, Trump got 8,447 votes in Lawrence, more than double the 3,535 he got in 2016. Harris, by contrast, won 12,016 votes, down more than 7,000 from Clinton’s total in 2016. To be clear, Harris still won Lawrence, but the drop in her margin of victory, there and in other cities, should be a cause for concern for the state’s Democrats.     

To be clear, 2024 was a bad election for Democrats. But just how bad depends on what it’s compared to. Putting aside 2020 as an outlier and looking at 2024 through the lens of 2016 reveals real challenges for Democrats on what has traditionally been their home turf: big cities with racially diverse populations. That’s plenty for Democrats to focus on as they figure out how to adjust to a second Trump administration in Washington.

Steve Koczela is president and Rich Parr is senior research director at the MassINC Polling Group.

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FOR A COOL $11 million, you can buy a Beacon Street residence that boasts rooms “splashed with sunlight” and the “latest” home technology inside.

Under the golden dome on the 226-year-old building next door, there is a House, as well as a Senate, without as much sunlight or many upgrades, but costing about the same amount.

Just over 300 candidates campaigned for the 200 seats in the House and Senate this year, with $11.2 million over the last 10 months flowing out of their campaign accounts, paying for consultants and mailers aimed at voters, newspaper subscriptions, and food and drinks for staff and constituents.

But contested races were few and far between. Most incumbents glided to reelection without opposition, including top House and Senate leaders, who were among the biggest spenders. Ron Mariano, the House speaker, shelled out $258,431, while Senate President Karen Spilka spent $317,856.

The total spending on legislative races is up from $9.1 million in 2020, the last time the seats were on the same ballot as a presidential election. State senators and representatives run every two years.

The spending record stands at $17.6 million, set in 2004 when nearly 400 candidates ran for House and Senate offices, according to the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance, which keeps regulatory tabs on the money that flows through elections.

In 2004, the Bay State’s own John Kerry was at the top of the presidential ticket, vying against  George W. Bush, while then-Gov. Mitt Romney sought to boost Republican numbers in the Legislature. While Bush won a second term, Romney failed miserably, as every legislative incumbent was reelected, and Democrats added two seats in the House and one in the Senate.

This year, Massachusetts Republicans fared a little better, but not by much. They picked up a Senate seat, and two Democratic seats in the House, but also lost two Republican House seats.

One of the marquee races, considered to be one of the best opportunities for Republicans to pick up a seat, ended with the Democrat, Dylan Fernandes, eking out a narrow win over Republican Mathew Muratore, a fellow state representative, in a battle for a Plymouth-based Senate seat.

Fernandes vastly outspent Muratore, shoveling out $363,000, more than double the Republican’s $149,000. Fernandes spent it on campaign staff, polling and advertising buys, among other expenses, with his cumulative total over the last 10 months coming to $6.26 per vote, while Muratore spent $2.70 per vote.

In Greater Boston, the most-watched race ended up being a Democratic primary, as Rep. Marjorie Decker beat back a challenge from her left by just 40 votes. Harvard University graduate student Evan MacKay, in his appeal to voters in the liberal Cambridge-based district, sought to oust her by arguing Decker was too close to House leaders.

Decker spent $66 per vote, totaling $248,466, while MacKay spent $19 per vote, for a total of $65,358. Decker poured most of her money into paying campaign hands – she hired young Cambridge residents to knock on doors for her – and mail pieces. MacKay spent his money on food for volunteers and campaign literature.

In the one Senate race that Republicans did notch a notable win, Taunton Councilor Kelly Dooner won despite appearing to be slightly outspent by Raynham Selectman Joe Pacheco heading into the November election. The numbers for the final days of the election haven’t been released yet. In Somerset, Justin Thurber, the Air Force veteran and Republican candidate who beat longtime Democratic Rep. Patricia Haddad, was also outspent.

Both successful Republican campaigns indicate that the state GOP may have missed an opportunity in not running more candidates in that area of the state. Michael Rodrigues, the Senate Ways and Means chairman who beat back a Republican opponent two years ago with 57 percent of the vote, ran unopposed this year, even as his hometown of Westport went for Donald Trump.

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THE RIGHTWARD LURCH seen throughout the country didn’t miss Massachusetts – the state just started bluer. 

Vice President Kamala Harris, who carried the state and its 11 electoral votes by 61.3 percent to President-elect Donald Trump’s 36.5 percent, not only won Massachusetts by a smaller margin than her Democratic predecessors. She won almost every single town by less, a sign that the Democratic coalition is weakening even in its strongholds.

Trump won 75 cities of the state’s 351 municipalities, according to current Associated Press counts, and has increased his vote count to 1.23 million million from 1.17 million in 2020. His pockets of wins are focused on Hampden, Plymouth, Bristol, and Worcester counties, with the biggest margin in his favor coming from Acushnet, where he pulled 72 percent of the votes.

House Speaker Ron Mariano said the party “must view this election not only as a wake up call, but also as an opportunity to renew our focus on the issues that drove voters across the country towards the Republican Party this year.”

Those issues, according to exit polling and polls throughout recent years, were the economy and immigration. Inflation has hammered leaders across the globe, with voters ousting almost every incumbent and ruling party that was in power as prices started to hike.

The most important issue facing the country, according to Massachusetts exit polling, was the economy and jobs. Of the 32 percent of voters who said that, Harris barely squeaked out a 49 to 48 percent win in the Bay State, which was actually an improvement from 2020. Of Massachusetts voters who told exit pollsters the economy was the number one issue in 2020, 74 percent said they voted for Donald Trump. 

While the Covid pandemic dominated voter concern in 2020, immigration was barely a blip. Just 2 percent of Massachusetts voters told exit pollsters that immigration was the most important issue in the country, but 22 percent identified it as the major issue in 2024. 

And for those who considered it the most important issue, immigration was the single biggest indicator of a Trump vote. Only 21 percent of those Massachusetts voters said they voted for Harris, compared to 77 percent who said Trump.

In flipped seats, immigration was an effective cudgel as an influx of migrants squeezed the state’s shelter system. Ken Sweezey, the Pembroke Republican who beat Democrat Rebecca Coletta to fill a vacant South Shore district, hammered immigration throughout the campaign.

It was “the number one issue” he hears about from voters, Sweezey said in an October forum. According to South Shore News, he criticized the state’s handling of the migrant crisis, arguing that Massachusetts has become “a magnet for this issue.”

Exit polls are not always the most reliable measures of demographic change – the eventual Pew Research Center analysis of validated voters will offer insight into the nitty gritty of swinging voting blocs – but changes by regions with distinct demographic characteristics can be a useful starting point.

Biden’s 70 percent margin of victory among Latino voters dropped to about 41 percent with Harris  based on initial data. It is part of a years-long trend toward Trump from Latinos across the country. 

Though a majority of Latino voters have backed Harris, the coalition is far from a monolith, with polling over the last year finding that Latinos voting for Trump were generally actively voting for him rather than against Harris, while those voting for Harris were split between approval of her and distaste for Trump. They overwhelmingly cited the economy as the biggest issue in the election, which is also reflected by moves toward Trump in Massachusetts’ mid-sized urban center Gateway Cities.

While Trump was more dominant in rural regions, urban areas also swung toward him this year. While Biden had a 60 point margin of victory in the state’s urban areas in 2020, Harris won by 39 percent according to VoteCast data.

In Lawrence, the most Latino community in the state with more than 80 percent of its residents identified as Latino in the 2020 census, the slippage was starting to show after 2016. Clinton pulled 82 percent, Biden got 74 percent, and Harris dropped to 59 percent.

It was the single biggest downward shift toward Trump of any community in Massachusetts. Other heavily Latino regions moved in the same direction. Chelsea saw a 19 point change from Biden to Harris, with Holyoke seeing a similar but smaller shift.

“What was so interesting in 2020 when we were looking at this map of the shift,” MassINC Polling Group research director Rich Parr said on The Horse Race podcast, “was that the only places that shifted toward Trump – everywhere else had shifted toward Biden since 2016 – were Holyoke and Lawrence… and now everyone has shifted, but the Latino communities are at the top of the list.”

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IN 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated Columbus Day a federal holiday. For Roosevelt, as for many Americans, Columbus was a “brave navigator” who struggled “against opponents who had belittled his great plan and thwarted its execution.”  

However, many Native Americans believe Columbus represents the conquest of the continent by Europeans and the resulting death or displacement of millions of Indigenous people. For decades, prominent Native American groups have called on states, localities, and the federal government to abandon the celebration of Columbus Day

Over time, a perspective that takes Native American people’s views into account has gained wider acceptance. Seventeen states now have a holiday honoring Native Americans, and a handful have entirely replaced the Columbus Day holiday with Indigenous People’s Day. In 2021, President Biden issued an official proclamation of Indigenous People’s Day, an important step in establishing a federal holiday. 

This movement has reached the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, named after the Native American tribe that resided in what is now Greater Boston. Today, 28 Massachusetts cities and towns celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day. The Massachusetts Legislature is considering a bill that would rename Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day statewide. The legislation has more than 50 co-sponsors, and Gov. Maura Healey has signaled she would sign if it reached her desk.

But the bill is currently languishing in the Legislature, with no schedule for an up-or-down vote. It seems unlikely to be enacted into law this session. 

The Bay State has a well-deserved reputation for progressive leadership. It is one of the only states in the nation to elect both an African American senator and governor as well as an LGBTQ+ governor. Massachusetts was the first state to recognize same-sex marriage and has some of the nation’s strictest gun control laws. 

For most Massachusetts residents, the stakes of the bill to replace Columbus Day are low — it will not increase taxes, establish any new programs, or expand the state bureaucracy. So why is legislation to establish Indigenous People’s Day — and replace Columbus Day — facing such resistance? 

A likely reason is that state legislators are hearing from constituents who oppose the change. As it turns out, when it comes to this issue, many Massachusetts residents are more conservative than the state’s progressive reputation would suggest.

Our recent University of Massachusetts Amherst/WCVB poll shows that, while 41 percent of residents say they support “renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day,” 35 percent opposed it, and another 24 percent had no preference. That is hardly a ringing public endorsement. 

The online poll interviewed 700 Massachusetts residents from October 3 to October 10 and has a margin of error of +/- 4.8 percentage points.

And far from drawing consensus, the proposal to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day fractures Massachusetts public opinion on demographic, political, and ideological fault lines. 

Older residents are much more likely to oppose renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day than younger residents. Whites are much more skeptical than people of color. Republicans overwhelmingly oppose the idea, while a majority of Democrats support it. Conservatives hate the proposed change; liberals favor it.

What’s going on? 

Given the state’s history of settler colonialism and the resulting displacement or death of Native people, it’s impossible to disentangle the name of the holiday from race. Thus, we might expect attitudes toward whether the date should be celebrated as “Columbus Day” or memorialized as “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” to be closely connected with Massachusetts residents’ racial attitudes. This is especially true today, when racial attitudes are tightly interconnected with Americans’ partisan and ideological identities.

To measure racial animus, we asked Massachusetts residents on our recent survey to indicate their agreement with the Fear, Institutionalized Racism, and Empathy (FIRE) scale, a set of statements that measure generalized racial attitudes. The three statements provided were: “White people in the US have certain advantages because of the color of their skin;” “Racial problems in the US are rare, isolated situations;” and “I am angry that racism exists.” Those who deny white people’s advantages and the prevalence of racism, and do not express anger about racism, are considered to have greater racial prejudice.

Among Massachusetts adults who express the lowest racial prejudice in our sample, only 7 percent oppose renaming Columbus Day. But among those who express the highest racial prejudice close to three in four (74 percent) oppose it.

This divide holds even when we take into consideration respondents’ demographic characteristics and partisan and ideological identities. We find the same connection between opposition to renaming Columbus Day and racial attitudes in two of our previous surveys, conducted in October 2023 and May 2024, as well. 

Put simply, racial prejudice matters. 

Our data suggest that for many Massachusetts residents renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day is about more than a name change. It’s about whether the state will recognize the injustices that settler colonists carried out against Native peoples. And while a plurality of Massachusetts residents supports this, it leaves others feeling uncomfortable or upset. 

The upshot for proponents is to make the case — to state legislators and Commonwealth residents — that changing the name of the state holiday represents the best features of Massachusetts culture: inclusiveness, representativeness, and commitment to democracy. From this perspective, the name change affirms, rather than challenges, the core values of the Commonwealth.

And there’s reason to hope that public arguments such as these can make a difference. Research shows that appeals to common values and identities can help reduce political divisions. 

So let’s have the conversation about changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day. We’re optimistic that, with a little encouragement, a majority of Commonwealth residents will endorse this needed change.

Adam Eichen is a PhD student in political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a graduate research fellow for the UMass Poll. Jesse Rhodes is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-director of the UMass Poll. Tatishe Nteta is provost professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and director of the UMass Poll.

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STATE TAX COLLECTIONS in September rose slightly compared to last year but lagged projections, coming in about half a percentage point below the administration’s expectations for a significant revenue month.

The Department of Revenue said Thursday that it collected $4.518 billion in September — $331 million, or 7.9 percent more, than what was collected during September 2023, but $29 million, or 0.6 percent, below the monthly benchmark. And the department said a “temporary, one-time event in sales and use tax” accounted for $54 million of the year-over-year increase last month, without which last month’s revenues would have been $83 million below the benchmark.

September “is a significant month for revenues because many individuals and corporations are required to make estimated payments,” DOR said, adding that it generally produces about 10 percent of the state’s annual tax revenue.

At the quarter pole of fiscal year 2025, state government has collected approximately $9.826 billion in tax revenue. That’s $541 million, or 5.8 percent, more than actual collections over the same period of fiscal 2024, but still $44 million, or 0.4 percent, below the year-to-date benchmark. Without September’s one-time payment, DOR said, year-to-date collections would be $98 million below benchmark.

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TWO MONTHS AFTER the Legislature gaveled out of formal sessions for the year, leaving promised bills on climate change and economic development unfinished, a new poll shows voters are aren’t happy with Beacon Hill lawmakers.

The survey of likely voters finds that 47 percent disapprove of the job lawmakers are doing. Forty-two percent said they approved, and 11 percent said they were undecided (toplines/crosstabs).

“Usually Massachusetts voters are pretty okay with their State House leaders,” said Jerold Duquette, a professor of political science at Central Connecticut State University and a close watcher of Massachusetts politics. “That’s historically low.”

The findings come from a MassINC Polling Group survey of 800 likely voters, conducted from September 12 to 18, for CommonWealth Beacon and WBUR. The poll was funded by a Knight Election Hub grant and has a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points.

Lawmakers have come in for criticism from progressive activists and the business sector for failing to push several big bills across the finish line when formal sessions ended August 1.  “The consistent inability to enact planned legislation over a two-year session indicates a policymaking process that is not working effectively,” said a report this week from the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.

Legislative leaders claim the economic development package, which includes investments in artificial intelligence and life sciences, will get done in a special session, though it remains unscheduled.

Asked whether ending formal sessions with so many big bills left undone could be having an impact on the Legislature’s job approval ratings, Duquette said, “I don’t see how it could not be a factor.” At a minimum, he said, “it’s bad press. It’s a reminder of the way they operate. When you focus on it, it doesn’t look good to anybody.”

Voter cynicism driven by national politics – which in recent days has featured Donald Trump falsely claiming that Haitian migrants are eating people’s pets in Ohio – could also be trickling down to state politics, Duquette suggested.

Democratic voters, whose party enjoys a supermajority in both legislative branches on Beacon HIll and holds every statewide constitutional office, are more satisfied with state lawmakers, with 63 percent saying they approve of the job they’re doing, while 73 percent of Republicans say they disapprove.

Forty-nine percent of independents, who make up the largest bloc of the Massachusetts electorate, disapprove, while 45 percent approve.

The poll of likely voters suggests the Legislature’s standing may be slipping. In a poll conducted by MassINC Polling Group for CommonWealth Beacon last October, 51 percent of registered voters approved of the job the Legislature was doing, while 32 percent disapproved, and 16 percent said they didn’t know.

Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group, said voters’ dissatisfaction is also  apparent through their answers to other questions in the new poll. 

Fifty-eight percent said they wished more candidates ran for the state Legislature, which this year is expected to see 65 percent of incumbents go unchallenged. Nineteen percent said there are enough candidates running.

Asked whether state government overall operates in a way that is open and transparent, 45 percent said it doesn’t, compared with 36 percent who said it does, and 19 percent who were unsure.

That could help explain why a ballot question authorizing the state auditor to audit the Legislature (Question 1) has the support of a whopping 70 percent of those polled. Just 8 percent say they’re opposed, and 22 percent said they don’t know or refused to answer the question.

Auditor Diana DiZoglio has been campaigning for the ballot question, after lawmakers rebuffed her attempts to get them to submit to an audit.

The poll results, along with campaign finance reports tracking donations to the Question 1 campaign, show both Democrats and Republicans backing her question. The poll found 58 percent of Democrats in support, and 76 percent of Republicans, as well as 78 percent of independents.

The committee behind the ballot question has pulled in roughly $400,000 in donations, though fundraising has slowed as polling has shown the yes side of the ballot question ahead of the no side. 

CommonWealth Beacon previously reported that legislative leaders won’t be mounting an opposition campaign. They are instead widely expected to challenge the measure in court if the ballot question passes.

Duquette, the political science professor, has called the ballot measure constitutionally problematic, arguing that DiZoglio is unable to audit lawmakers without the consent of the Legislature.

He said the best analogue for the ballot measure is the Clean Elections Law, passed overwhelmingly by Massachusetts voters in 1998. Lawmakers resisted efforts to fund the law, which sought to provide public money to candidates who agreed to spending limits. Despite pressure through a court order, lawmakers repealed the law in 2003.

Duquette foresees a similar fate for the audit-the-Legislature question, and isn’t surprised lawmakers are opting against an opposition campaign. “Tactically they are making the decision that makes most sense to them,” he said.

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MASSACHUSETTS VOTERS are poised to return Elizabeth Warren to the US Senate, according to a new poll.

Warren, a 75-year-old Cambridge Democrat and national voice of the party’s progressive wing, is running for a third term and facing a challenge from John Deaton, a 57-year-old cryptocurrency lawyer who moved to Massachusetts from Rhode Island in order to run for the Republican nomination.

A MassINC Polling Group survey, conducted for CommonWealth Beacon and WBUR, found Warren receiving 56 percent of the vote to Deaton’s 35 percent. Seven percent said they were undecided.

The poll, made possible through a Knight Election Hub grant, surveyed 800 likely Bay State voters, through live telephone interviews and a text message link to an online survey, between September 12 and September 18. It has a margin of 4.1 percentage points.

The results closely mirror a poll released last week conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, which found that 58 percent of likely voters back Warren, while 32 percent said they’d vote for Deaton.

The MassINC poll, like the UNH survey, showed a wide swath of voters aren’t familiar with Deaton. Asked if they have a favorable or unfavorable view of him, 47 percent said they’d never heard of him.

Deaton, who moved to Bolton in order to establish Massachusetts residency, has loaned himself $1 million in order to mount the uphill Senate bid. Warren has roughly $5 million in cash on hand.

Deaton has argued that Warren is too much of a partisan and claimed she is electorally weaker than she appears. He has pointed to her 2020 presidential run, when she came in third, behind Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, in the Massachusetts primary.

Warren, in fundraising appeals, has focused on Deaton being “recruited” to run against her from Rhode Island, and after Deaton won a three-way primary, Warren’s campaign manager blasted out a statement saying he was the pick of “a small handful of crypto billionaires and corporate special interests.”

Deaton has sought to appeal to more centrist voters beyond the GOP’s tiny base in Massachusetts, touting his pro-choice stand on abortion and saying he’ll write-in a candidate for president – possibly former governor Charlie Baker – rather than vote for Donald Trump.

But Democrats and independent voters, who make up most of the electorate in Massachusetts, overwhelmingly back Warren, as do women voters, according to the new poll. In fact, Warren’s big lead comes entirely from a huge advantage she enjoys with women voters. The poll shows Warren winning 66 percent of the female vote, to Deaton’s 25 percent, while men are split 45 percent to 45 percent between the two.

At 52 percent, Warren has lower favorability ratings in Massachusetts than the top of the Democratic ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who each garnered 58 percent. Her unfavorability rating is also slightly higher at 41 percent.

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WHILE STATE LEADERS zero in on how to attract and keep people in Massachusetts, a new analysis  from the left-leaning Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center argues that reports of the state’s population demise are greatly exaggerated.

Or, at least, the waters are muddier than “everyone is leaving,” argues Kurt Wise, a senior policy analyst at MassBudget.  

He reviewed US Census Bureau data showing a slight increase in overall population – a slim 11,500 people added to the 7 million Bay State residents in 2022 and 2023 – and also Internal Revenue Service data showing 45,000 more people left the state than arrived in 2021.

“In short, the picture that can be drawn from available official data is inconsistent, though in any case, it is not one of crisis,” he wrote. “Nevertheless, migration data often is used – and misused – to push an agenda of tax cuts for very high-income households, the ultrawealthy, and large corporations. Cutting such taxes, however, would do nothing to help most people who choose to leave Massachusetts. Instead, it would deprive the Commonwealth of much-needed revenue that otherwise could be used to address challenges that likely are a factor in some people’s decision to leave the state.”

Researchers and business groups have been openly grappling with the scale and causes of Massachusetts outmigration, seen as both a serious risk to and symptom of the state’s competitiveness. 

While the governor touts state rankings from personal finance website WalletHub – with Massachusetts ranked number one “top state to live in” overall, narrowly beating out Florida – the state’s cost of living remains a consistent drag in report after report, even as researchers forcefully disagree on tax policy grounds.

The latest Competitiveness Index Report from the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation concluded the state does well by metrics like education level and labor force participation, but it ranks in the bottom 10 of states when it comes to metrics like domestic migration, housing and childcare costs, and state and local tax collections per capita.

“The rate of domestic outmigration in Massachusetts, compared to competitor states, is

incompatible with long-term economic growth,” the Tax Foundation report’s authors wrote. “Just as concerning, the outflow is more highly concentrated among wealthier residents. Massachusetts has always been reliant on taxes from high-wealth residents to support state government and that reliance has never been higher than after the passage of the income surtax. Losing high-wealth residents poses a clear and present economic and public finance threat to the Commonwealth.”

Boston Indicators – the research arm of the Boston Foundation – noted in April that the birth rate is slowing in Massachusetts, making migration to the state increasingly important. According to the Boston Indicators analysis, “since about 2009, Massachusetts has been losing individuals at all income levels. These losses are more concentrated among middle- and high-income earners, whose paths diverged markedly from low-income earners around 2017.”

Likewise, the state is losing people from all educational attainment levels. But the most worrying trend from the Boston Indicator’s perspective is the flight of 25- to 44-year-olds, which in 2022 made up about three-fifths of the total losses by age group.

“They are recent graduates, young professionals, folks looking to start a family or buy a home,” the report’s authors wrote. Yet, “many of these individuals are simply leaving, likely due in part to high housing costs.”

Another report in April, this one from Boston University Questrom School of Business professor Mark Williams, supported that outflow analysis, with an interesting wrinkle – even as business groups argue that residents are fleeing for friendlier tax environs like Florida, over half of the departing Massachusetts residents stay in New England.

This means the picture is more complicated than taxes alone, Williams wrote in a CommonWealth Beacon op-ed. Health care and housing costs are also impediments to young people trying to settle into their most productive workforce years, he wrote.

Opponents of the recently passed Fair Share Amendment, or millionaires tax, argue that the surtax on those who make over $1 million per year is prompting the very wealthy to pack their bags and find a new home outside of Massachusetts. The surtax took effect in 2023, so outmigration analyses aren’t yet able to directly assess that claim.

Since last year, Massachusetts dropped 12 places in the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation assessment and is now ranked 46th in tax competitiveness. The analysis uses data prior to the implementation of the income surtax and 2023 tax relief legislation, the report notes, so “combined, these changes will likely worsen MA’s rankings.”

In the MassBudget report, Wise argues that IRS data show that Massachusetts is actually growing its population of very high earners quickly. The number of Massachusetts households with million-plus incomes increased by 40 percent from 2020 to 2021, according to the IRS data, likely through a combination of in-migration of some wealthy residents plus natural median income growth over time which is occurring faster in Massachusetts than most other states. At the same time, about one in six residents leaving Massachusetts in 2021 had incomes over $200,000, with their average household income well below $1 million, Wise wrote. 

Among the 26-45 year old demographic, which accounts for over half of the people leaving Massachusetts in 2021, 80 percent of them had incomes below $200,000 a year. 

“Again,” Wise wrote, “tax cuts for very high-income households are not a policy prescription that aligns with the income demographics of Massachusetts outmigration.”

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WHILE POLITICAL LEADERS and policymakers voice concerns about the large number of families living on the financial edge, often extolling the value of various government-sponsored savings plans, they have simultaneously legalized sports betting, embracing an industry that is directly undermining the goal of saving for the future.

That’s the finding of a massive new study looking at the impact of sports betting on household finances in the first six years since a 2018 US Supreme Court decision cleared the way for states to legalize gambling on sports. The study found that legalization of online sports betting has not led people to divert money from other forms of entertainment to this new sector, but has instead led them to overextend their budgets at the expense of saving money through investment accounts, especially among the most financially vulnerable households. 

The study linked sports betting to “a large decrease” in deposits to brokerage accounts, accompanied by “decreased credit availability, increased credit card debt, and a higher incidence rate of overdrawing bank accounts.” In all, say the researchers, access to online sports betting “exacerbates financial difficulties faced by constrained households.” 

The study defined constrained households based on lower savings rates, higher credit card debt, and a history of bank overdrafts. 

Massachusetts joined the sports betting bandwagon last year, one of 38 states plus Washington, DC, where gambling on sports is now legal.  

Scott Baker, an associate professor of finance at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the lead author of the report, said a primary question the research sought to answer was whether people simply turned to sports betting instead of going out to the movies or spending disposable income on other forms of entertainment, including shifting money already spent on other types of gambling to bet on sports. 

Using financial data from 230,000 US households, the researchers found that the introduction of online sports gambling does not displace other spending but instead leads to new overspending and “significantly reduces households’ savings allocations.” 

“The reduced payments towards credit card bills, coupled with rising debt levels, indicate that these households are not merely shifting funds from one type of entertainment to another but are instead becoming more indebted to fund an addictive losing proposition,” the authors write.

What we’re seeing from sports betting is “people going over their budgets, having trouble making ends meet,” Baker said in an interview. 

The study, “Gambling Away Stability: Sports Betting’s Impact on Vulnerable Households,” found that legalization of sports betting led to a 14 percent decrease in household deposits in brokerage investment accounts, with every $1 in sports betting reducing net investments by roughly $2. 

Among households that placed online sports bets – roughly 8 percent of all households – the average annual spending on sports gambling was $1,100. The share of their income that low-savings households spent on sports betting, however, was 32 percent higher than the share spent by higher-income homes. 

Rachel Volberg, a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a leading researcher on gambling, said unlike casino gambling, which has grown gradually over several decades, the 38 states that have rushed to legalize sports betting since 2018 did so with little evidence available on its impact before diving in. “So we’re in the middle of a gigantic social experiment,” she said. 

Volberg said the study results did not surprise her. She said they are “pretty much in line with what we know about lotteries,” which is that people who have lower incomes tend to spend a larger proportion of that income than wealthier people do on lottery tickets.” 

With the sports-betting horse already out of the barn, Baker said policymakers should look for ways to mitigate its harmful effects. He said the toll it is taking on financially constrained households seems most closely tied to online sports betting, which may be an argument for limiting any move to legalization in the small number of states that have not yet done so to in-person locations. 

While states and the federal government have sought to encourage savings and investments, the rush to legalize sports betting doesn’t just send a mixed message about the value of  long-term investing, the study says it appears to be working directly at cross purposes with those efforts. “As legalized sports betting gains traction,” Baker and his colleagues write, “it potentially undermines government efforts aimed at promoting savings through tax incentives and financial literacy programs.” 

Baker said sports betting is clearly bringing in new revenue to states. “We’re just saying there are trade-offs if you’re concerned about household finances or the fragility of low-income households,” he said.

According to Baker, the full impact of sports betting is still unknown, because spending in the states that have legalized it is still rising. “It hasn’t plateaued yet,” he said. “We don’t yet know where this lands or stabilizes.”  

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IT’S GOOD TO BE an incumbent on Beacon Hill, and it’s especially good if you hold a leadership position in the House and Senate

That’s one of the main takeaways from the list of candidates who have qualified for the 2024 election cycle as of May 28, with 130 incumbents appearing to go without a challenger in either a primary or the general election. Democrats are expected to continue to hold a super-majority in both chambers.

The list, provided by the office of Secretary of State Bill Galvin, who oversees Massachusetts elections, comes with some caveats. Candidates can still withdraw their names in the coming days, or opponents can challenge an aspect of their candidacy with a state commission.

But the list offers an early preview of how little competition voters will see in the coming election cycle, and what’s in store for the 200 seats that make up the House and Senate. Similar to 2022, House Speaker Ron Mariano of Quincy and Senate President Karen Spilka of Ashland, the top Democrats in each chamber, are running unopposed in their respective districts.

In the 40-member Senate, 26 incumbents do not face a challenger, including Sen. Michael Rodrigues, a Westport Democrat atop the Senate’s Ways and Means Committee. Eight incumbents are facing a challenge only in the general election, three are facing a challenge in the primary, and three senators are stepping down, prompting several candidates to jump into those races.

In the 160-member House, Boston Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, who is widely viewed as the next speaker, does not face a challenger, joining 103 other legislators in the lower chamber who don’t have to worry about a tough time on the campaign trail this summer.

There are 25 House incumbents facing a challenge only in the general election, 15 are facing primary challengers, and 16 are leaving the House, creating an open seat. 

In both branches, the leaders of the minority party, including Rep. Brad Jones of North Reading in the House and Sen. Bruce Tarr of Gloucester, didn’t draw any opponents.

Challengers can still emerge if they get enough write-in votes in the September primary. Republicans are eyeing that strategy in their hopes to oust Rep. Chris Flanagan, a Democrat from Dennis who was hit with financial penalties earlier this year after campaign finance regulators showed he lied to them about the source of a 2022 campaign mailer.

Among the newly elected, Sen. Peter Durant, who represents cities and towns in parts of Worcester and Hampshire counties after winning a special election last year and flipping a seat from red to blue after longtime incumbent Anne Gobi left for the Healey administration, won’t face a challenger. His Democratic opponent from the special election, Rep. Jonathan Zlotnik, opted to run for reelection instead, and faces a Republican he’s beaten twice before.

The Senate will see three open seats as Sen. Marc Pacheco isn’t seeking another two year term, and Susan Moran and Walter Timilty are giving up their seats to run for county clerk positions. The openings have drawn a smattering of Democratic, Republican, and unenrolled candidates.

There are 16 open House seats, several of which were created due to the domino effect of the Senate seats opening up, in addition to retirements. Even among two open contests, there is no competition.

Hadley Luddy, an Orleans Democrat, appears to be the only one vying for the seat held by Provincetown Rep. Sarah Peake, a member of the House since 2007. 

In western Massachusetts, Easthampton City Council President Homar Gomez is the only candidate for a seat that opened up this year after Easthampton Rep. Daniel Carey, a Democrat in office since 2019, announced he is running for Hampshire clerk of courts.

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