AS THE DELTA variant spurs an increase in cases and renewed calls for masking indoors, new poll numbers show Massachusetts employees broadly support their vaccine requirements for their own workplaces. The data was collected for this week’s Mass Reboot episode entitled Work. Overall, 75 percent of employed residents at least somewhat support their own employer […]
Richard Parr
Posted inNews Analysis
Poll shows strong support for requiring vaccines for teachers, first responders, and other groups
NEWS THAT THE state’s biggest health care provider systems will be requiring COVID vaccinations of their employees will likely renew debate about whether other organizations or types of businesses should do the same. Survey data from late last month suggest that about three-quarters of residents statewide support vaccine requirements in the public sector. Topping the […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Getting Gateway Cities back on the bus
MUCH OF THE FOCUS on public transportation in Massachusetts during COVID has been on service cuts at the MBTA, but the Regional Transit Authorities serving the state’s Gateway Cities and surrounding communities have also been struggling with declines in ridership since the start of the pandemic. A new poll (topline, crosstabs) highlights the challenges facing […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Even in Mass., 1 in 4 think election not fair
JOE BIDEN won Massachusetts — by a lot, more even than Hillary Clinton did in 2016, more even than Barack Obama in 2012 or 2008. You have to go back to 1996 to find a Democrat who won Massachusetts by as much as Joe Biden did this year. Biden won Massachusetts on his way to […]
Posted inNews Analysis
What does early-vote surge mean for ‘Election Day’?
WE’RE GOING TO have to come up with a better phrase than “Election Day,” given how many Americans have already voted this year. As of Monday, over 95 million votes have already been cast, with another 31 million mail ballots requested but not yet returned. Over two-thirds of the total number of votes cast in […]
Posted inHealth Care
Mass. voters offer Warren a warning on Medicare for All
AS MASSACHUSETTS Sen. Senator Elizabeth Warren joins Joe Biden atop the Democratic primary field, her rivals have sharpened their attacks on her positions, most notably around her support for Senator Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for All” proposal. Today, Warren doubled down, releasing a massively complex and detailed plan to pay for her $20.5 trillion extension of […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Americans evenly divided on impeachment
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE TRUMP-UKRAINE story are coming at a breakneck pace, and so now are national polls asking about whether the President should be impeached. There are enough impeachment polls now that data-analysis website FiveThirtyEight has launched an impeachment tracker. Like the site’s Trump approval tracker, the impeachment tool weights each poll “accounting for each […]
Posted inPolitics
Kennedy vs. Markey is no Pressley vs. Capuano
ON SATURDAY, Rep. Joe Kennedy formally announced his campaign to challenge Sen. Ed Markey in next year’s Democratic primary. Rumors of a Kennedy run have been swirling since earlier this summer, and with them comparisons to Ayanna Pressley’s successful 2018 primary bid against Mike Capuano. While both Pressley and Kennedy represent a generational shift, the […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Polling, like everything else, is moving online
HE’S NOT EVEN officially running, but we now have two polls showing Rep. Joe Kennedy III with a sizable lead over Sen. Ed Markey in the Democratic primary for US Senate. The first, from Change Research, showed Kennedy with an eye-popping 17 point lead. That margin raised questions about how seriously to take an online […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Did Liss-Riordan overstep on Second Amendment?
FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS about American’s constitutional right to bear arms are roiling the Massachusetts Democratic primary for US Senate. After mass shootings, a distressingly occurrence in American politics, the debate typically focuses on incremental changes to gun laws that might be possible in our polarized political environment. But after two back-to-back mass shootings this past weekend […]