THIS WEEK, Sen. Cory Booker held the Senate floor for a record-breaking 25 hours to protest actions taken during the first two months of the Trump administration. The New Jersey Democrat said the harm being caused demanded action that would call out the administration and show a willingness to fight back.

Polls of Democratic voters show that Booker’s resolve fits the mood of Democrats nationally, and especially here in Massachusetts, who have grown frustrated with a perceived lack of fight from their representatives in Congress.  

A new MassINC Polling Group poll of Massachusetts voters finds that 62 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents want Democrats in Washington to “mainly work to stop the Republican agenda.” Only 27 percent want Democrats to mainly work with Republicans.

The poll was carried out from March 17-20, immediately after 10 Senate Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, joined Republicans in allowing a vote on a funding bill that avoided a government shutdown. 

The 35-point gap in favor of resistance to Republicans is much larger than when CNN asked the same question of Democrats nationally earlier in March. CNN found 57 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents favored opposition, versus 42 percent who wanted cooperation.

Even with the tighter margin, those numbers are a reversal from when CNN asked this question during the first Trump administration. In September 2017, 74 percent of Democrats wanted cooperation, and only 23 percent wanted resistance.

Democrats are clearly in a fighting mood. The same CNN poll found that only 63 percent of Democrats held a favorable view of the national party, likely driven by the feeling that not enough was being done to oppose the new administration. A separate Economist/YouGov poll from March found that 71 percent of Democratic voters felt Democrats were “not doing enough” to “resist actions by Donald Trump that they disagree with,” up from 60 percent in February. 

Given that Massachusetts is one of the deepest blue states, it makes sense that it would be firmly in the vanguard of the resistance to Trump. The challenge for the state’s all-Democratic congressional delegation is that the overall Massachusetts electorate is not exactly mounting the barricades.

Among all voters – Democrats, Republicans, and independents – 48 percent want Democrats in Congress to work with Republicans, while 40 percent want opposition. (MassINC Polling Group asked this question of all voters; CNN only asked it of Democrats, so there isn’t a national comparison here.) 

Unsurprisingly, 87 percent of Massachusetts Republicans and Republican leaners want Democrats to work with Republicans. But so do 50 percent of the remaining independents who do not lean towards either party. These independents are also less likely to follow the news closely.

While 45 percent of Democrats and 46 percent of Republicans say they are following the news about the Trump administration “very closely,” only 27 percent of independents say the same. Independents are not wholly tuned out of political news, but they are more likely to pay less attention. 

How voters feel about that news also shows a strong partisan split. The poll asked voters to pick three emotions from a list to describe their feelings about national politics right now.

The clear top three for Democrats are “angry” (52 percent), “fearful” (48 percent), and “ashamed” (47 percent), followed by “frustrated” (37 percent) and “anxious” (32 percent). 

Republicans, by contrast, are feeling “optimistic” (45 percent), “patriotic” (25 percent), and “motivated” (23 percent). Following these, there is a long tail of ambivalent and negative emotions. “Satisfied,” “inspired,” “proud,” and “satisfied” (all 19 percent) run into “conflicted,” “frustrated,” and “anxious” (16-17 percent). One in 10 Republicans report feeling overwhelmed or exhausted. Even the least popular option, “ashamed,” garners 5 percent of Republicans. This pattern suggests that Massachusetts Republicans are more divided in their opinions than are Democrats. 

Independents again split the difference. They feel more negatively than positively, as Democrats do, but express a broader range of responses, more like Republicans. In place of a clear top one to three responses, they have six to eight: “Anxious” and “ashamed” top the list with 32 percent, followed by “frustrated” (31 percent). But independents are also feeling “exhausted” (29 percent), “conflicted” (28 percent) and “overwhelmed” (21 percent) at higher rates than Democrats and Republicans.  

Feeling exhausted and overwhelmed may explain why more of these independent voters have tuned out from the news, which may weigh on how they want Democrats to react.

Overall, about half (51 percent) of Massachusetts voters who are paying “very close” attention to the Trump administration want opposition from Democrats. Among those paying less attention, 53 percent want Democrats to work with Republicans. That pattern holds even among Democrats: 76 percent of Democrats who are following the news very closely want opposition. Among Democrats paying less attention, that drops to about half.  

Democratic lawmakers are clearly hearing from their party faithful that they need to do more to resist the Trump agenda. The challenge for them will be balancing that impulse against the desire for bipartisanship from the rest of the electorate — and against the limits of their resistance as the minority party.  

John Gee is research manager and Richard Parr is senior research director at the MassINC Polling Group.

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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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THE SWITCH AT the top of the presidential ticket has given an added boost to the already considerable Democratic advantage in Massachusetts. A new CommonWealth Beacon/WBUR poll of likely voters in the November election finds Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump by a 28-percentage point margin (toplines/crosstabs). 

That’s a big jump from the 18-point lead enjoyed by President Biden in a CommonWealth Beacon poll in March, when he was the presumed Democratic nominee, and seems to reflect the surge of enthusiasm seen nationally for the Democratic ticket after Harris replaced Biden.  

Among likely Massachusetts voters, Harris is the choice of 59 percent while 31 percent say they’ll vote for Trump. When the poll includes those leaning but not yet fully committed to a candidate, each gains 1 point, with Harris favored 60-32.  

Harris and Trump also split voters who initially favor some other candidate. When those voters are asked to pick one of the major-party nominees, Harris leads 63 percent to 35 percent.  

The poll was conducted by the MassINC Polling Group from September 12 to 18 among 800 likely Massachusetts voters and made possible through a grant from the Knight Election Hub. It has a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points. 

Harris’ performance is a dramatic improvement over Biden’s performance in the March poll. Then Biden led Trump 46 percent to 28 percent. An 18-point lead would be impressive anywhere but deep blue Massachusetts, where it was an early sign of the persistent lack of support that culminated in Biden’s departure from the race after the first presidential debate in June.  

Harris’s 28-point margin, if it holds, would track with Hillary Clinton’s 27-point win over Trump in 2016. Biden defeated Trump by 34 points in 2020, the largest Democratic blowout in Massachusetts since 1964, when Lyndon Johnson trounced Barry Goldwater by 53 points, 76-23.  

Harris’s overall strength in the Democratic stronghold is not surprising, but it is also remarkably comprehensive, with the vice president favored over her Republican opponent by nearly every measure and subgroup in the poll. Harris leads Trump in every geographic region of the state and among every demographic subgroup in the poll except two: self-identified Republicans and men under the age of 45. She is winning among men overall (50-41), but there is a substantial gender gap, with Harris leading among women by an astonishing 47 points (69-22). 

A majority of voters (58 percent) have favorable views of both Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. By contrast, 58 percent have an unfavorable view of Trump, and 61 percent have an unfavorable of his vice-presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. The fact that so many voters have an opinion of both VP picks only months after their introduction to the national stage is a sign that the electorate is tuned in and paying attention.  

Harris is preferred over Trump on every candidate attribute tested in the poll. When asked which of the two each statement better describes, 60 percent or more think Harris is “mentally sharp” (62-25), “likely to follow the law” (62-25), “expresses a positive view of future of America” (61-28), and “is a person of strong moral character.” Majorities think Harris will “represent all Americans” (58-29), “keep America safe” (55-36), and “seems like someone you can relate to” (55-21).  

The only two attributes where Harris’s edge dips below a majority are crucial ones, however. Harris leads Trump by 12 points on “knows how to manage the economy” (48-36). And the two are neck-and-neck on the question of who “will bring real change to Washington” (39-35); 20% of voters thought that statement described neither candidate.  

These two attributes may be the key to the race in more competitive states. In Massachusetts, 55 percent of voters say that jobs, wages, and the economy matter most to their presidential vote, the top issue tested. And 50 percent say the country is headed in the wrong direction, suggesting a preference for change over continuity. 

But for now, the change that seems to have made the most difference in the state is the one at the top of the Democratic ticket, with Kamala Harris poised to repeat recent Democratic dominance of the presidential race in Massachusetts. 

Richard Parr is senior research director at the MassINC Polling Group.   

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Third of three parts

NEWS REPORTS about safety and transportation may conjure images of crumbling bridges or that Orange Line train that caught fire crossing the Mystic River. While the condition of the roads and rails are certainly a concern, the top reasons that Massachusetts residents feel unsafe getting around has more to do with the behavior of other travelers.

The safety results from this most recent poll hinge largely on where you draw the line in the sand. Excluding those who said they did not use certain modes (mostly transit and biking), majorities do feel at least “somewhat safe.” But a quarter or less feel “very safe” on the state’s highways, various forms of public transit, or riding a bike. Only 17 percent of bus riders, 16 percent of subway riders, and only 12 percent of cyclists feel “very safe.”  

“Very” and “somewhat” responses are often grouped together, particularly when measuring support or opposition to a policy proposal or a public figure’s approval rating. But when it comes to safety, the question is whether feeling “somewhat safe” getting around is good enough? If not, these results suggest there is much more that could be done to make residents feel fully safe getting around.

And that starts with addressing other travelers’ behavior. Among those who feel unsafe driving, three of the top four reasons concerned other drivers: reckless or speeding drivers (82 percent), drivers distracted by their phones (77 percent), and road rage (61 percent). Two-thirds (66 percent) cited road conditions, so both infrastructure and how drivers are using it are concerns.

Transit riders who feel unsafe cite crime and violence as their top concern (71 percent), followed by overcrowding (54 percent), and old or broken transit vehicles or stations (43 percent each).

Pedestrians who feel unsafe are most concerned about crime (65 percent), followed by distracted (55 percent) and reckless drivers (54 percent).

We first observed this concern with crime in a series of focus groups about the MBTA from this summer. When we asked about safety, we expected to hear about old trains and stations, but instead heard harrowing stories about crime on buses or stalking or harassment from other riders.

Those who feel unsafe riding a bike are also worried about speeding and reckless drivers (72 percent) and distracted driving (69 percent). Safety is also a reason why 27 percent of residents report not riding a bike at all. The top reasons for not riding bikes was simply not having one (55 percent) or a lack of interest (35 percent). But 19 percent of non-cyclists said they did not feel safe riding, 13 percent worried about reckless or speeding drivers, and 6 percent were worried about drivers distracted by their phones. If these residents felt safer, some of them might be willing to give cycling a try.

Between 25 percent and 30 percent of residents are not riding transit, depending on the mode. Again safety is not the top reason why, but it is a factor. When asked why they don’t ride transit, 10 percent of non-riders cited crime, 8 percent the safety of vehicles or stations, and 8 percent the chance of catching COVID or another disease while riding. These are not the top reasons for not riding transit, but they do suggest that safety is an underlying concern that is keeping some fraction of residents off trains and buses.

We’ve asked about safety in prior polls and found similar levels of concerns. An August 2023 poll found that majorities of residents living in the 175 cities and towns served by the T have felt unsafe at least once or twice on transit due to the condition of the infrastructure (70 percent) or other reasons (67 percent). And a June 2022 poll  found that less than 20 percent of residents statewide rated each type of infrastructure (highways, bridges, local roads, various types of transit, bike lanes, and sidewalks) as being in “very safe” condition.

Safety may not be residents top concern about transportation, but it is a threshold issue for any mode of travel. If travelers don’t feel safe enough on a bus, train, or road, they’ll avoid it, and getting them back will be that much harder. What this latest poll reveals is that it’s not just the condition of the roads and rails residents are worried about; it’s how other people are using them as well.

Richard Parr is the senior research director of the MassINC Policy Group. The first and second parts or this series are available here and here.

About the poll

These results are based on a survey of 1,390 Massachusetts residents. Oversamples were conducted to obtain a total of 204 Black, 197 Latino, and 151 Asian residents. Responses were collected by online survey and live interviews via landline and cell phones from October 23 to November 6, 2023. Results within race and ethnicity were weighted by age, gender, and education level. These were then combined and weighted by race, age, gender, education, geography, and political identification to reflect known and estimated population parameters for the adult population of Massachusetts. The credibility interval for this survey is +/- 3.0 percentage points for the entire sample, including the design effect. This project was conducted by The MassINC Polling Group and sponsored by The Barr Foundation.

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Second of three parts

IT’S PRETTY CLEAR that troubles with the MBTA are dragging down the transportation grades for state leaders. When a new poll for the
Barr Foundation asked those surveyed to name the top transportation issue facing Massachusetts, 39 percent cited issues with the existing public transportation network. That was the clear top item, followed by traffic congestion at 21 percent.

The MassINC Polling Group found sharp regional differences on this question. Concerns with public transit dominate within I-495, while traffic and road conditions are top of mind farther from Boston. A quarter (23 percent) in Western Massachusetts want to see expanded public transit, whether that be more regional transit authority bus service or the long-awaited East-West rail project. In Suffolk County, home to Boston, residents are concerned about both public transit (42 percent) and traffic (26 percent).

Traffic and transit are connected problems in many respondents’ minds. To quote one resident’s open-ended response to this question: “It’s a complete dumpster fire right now. Bostonians can’t rely on the MBTA so more people are turning to cars, thus causing more traffic on the highways. Trains should be coming through stations every 5-7 mins, not 12-20 mins.”

This is a relationship that shows up in past polls as well. A 2019 WBUR poll found that Boston-area residents overwhelmingly agreed that “Public transportation helps get cars off the roads. Without it, traffic would be much worse.”

The inverse seems to be true as well: problems at the T are supercharging the return of traffic after the pandemic. This new poll shows that poll respondents feel traffic is back in a big way. Overall, 52 percent think traffic in their part of the state is worse than it was before the COVID pandemic. Another 37 percent think it’s about the same as pre-COVID. Just 7 percent think traffic has improved since COVID.

That 37 percent “about the same” number is not great, considering how bad traffic had gotten before COVID.  An April 2019 poll found that traffic was reaching a breaking point. Two-thirds (67 percent) reported leaving earlier or later to avoid traveling during the worst traffic; nearly as many (63 percent) say they have felt stressed, angry, or frustrated. Full-time employees were feeling the effects even more acutely, with 72 percent reporting emotional impacts and about half (52 percent) said they have been late to work in the past few months.

The pandemic was a release valve on traffic, so much so that a February 2021 poll found that more thought traffic would be better than worse after the pandemic, although 46 percent thought it would be about the same. But by May 2021, that had flipped, and 32 percent thought traffic would come back worse. A June 2022 poll confirmed that fear, as 38 percent said traffic was now worse than pre-COVID. That number has now grown to 52 percent.

Traffic is back despite the persistence of remote work. The share of workers who report working from home at least a few times a week has declined since the height of the pandemic, but a third still say they work either from home every day (14 percent) or a few times a week (20 percent).

It may be that, even with remote work, we simply have more cars on the roads than they can handle, but the problems on the MBTA are not helping matters. According to TransitMatters, T ridership is only at 64 percent of pre-pandemic levels. Some of those missing riders may be working from home, but many have likely taken to their cars, clogging the roads in place of other drivers who are now working from home.

Remote work has changed the calculus for many commuters deciding between driving and taking transit. Driving into Boston two or three days a week is more tolerable than driving in five days a week pre-pandemic. And a monthly transit pass may make less sense if folks aren’t using it enough to cover its cost.  

Most commuters statewide (83 percent) are driving, at least part of their trips. Transit use is largely concentrated within Route 128, and even there two-thirds are driving. Even in this region closest to Boston, more workers report their work offers free parking (46 percent) than free or discounted transit passes (32 percent).

There are many reasons why commuters choose to travel the way they do, and 31 percent of drivers said they felt that driving was their only option. Still, 24 percent of commuters who took transit said they did so in part because of cost, largely to avoid the cost of parking in Boston. Commuters won’t take transit unless it is available to them and reliable. But making it affordable compared to driving could tip the scales back in the T’s favor – and relieve some of the pressures on the state’s roads as well.

Richard Parr is the senior research director at the MassINC Polling Group. The first part of this series can be found here.

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First of three parts

LAST WEEK was one of the busiest and most frustrating travel weeks of the year. But even before they had to slog through Thanksgiving traffic, Massachusetts residents were not exactly thrilled with the state of getting around the Commonwealth.

In a new poll, sponsored by the Barr Foundation, residents give both the governor and Legislature middling grades for handling transportation, spurred on by concerns about traffic and safety. And that was all before the MBTA announced it would take a staggering $24.5 billion to bring the beleaguered system into a state of good repair.

The MassINC Polling Group has been polling regularly about transportation in Massachusetts for over a decade. For this series of articles, we dove into some of our past recent polls to provide context to this latest research.

Residents gave both Gov. Maura Healey and the Legislature passing grades on transportation, but it’s not a report card either will want to hang on the refrigerator. C was the most common grade. No more than 30 percent gave either an A or a B.

For her handling of the T specifically, about as many gave Healey a D (17 percent), or an F (13 percent) as gave her an A (6 percent) or B (24 percent). Residents graded the Legislature even more harshly, with only a quarter giving the General Court an A (5 percent) or B (20 percent).

Supporters of the governor may be quick to point out that Healey is digging out of a hole that predated her administration. They certainly have a point. During Charlie Baker’s two terms, the T was led by a series of general managers with a curious lack of transit experience, including the former research director at the conservative Pioneer Institute and a former Texas energy executive whose firm was investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Under these GMs the T repeatedly used money from its operating budget to make capital improvements, some of which may not have even been made. This budgetary shell game created operating deficits, which spurred fare hikes, service cuts, and a rare rebuke from the state’s congressional delegation. Since 2022, the T has been under a microscope from the Federal Transit Administration after a series of safety lapses that put riders and track workers at risk.

Most recently, the Boston Globe reported that T officials had known about construction flaws on the rails of the brand new Green Line Extension since before the service opened in 2021 but failed to tell the Healey administration. A Baker spokesman denied the governor’s office had been told of the problem, placing the governor, who built his political brand on competent, hands-on management, out of the loop instead of in on a cover-up.

The litany of problems at the T have taken their toll in terms of public confidence in the system and transportation generally. A fall 2022 poll found that only 23 percent of voters statewide thought the T was any better than when Baker took office in 2015; 33 percent thought it had gotten worse during his tenure. Voters also had low opinions of transportation writ-large: three-quarters rated the condition of the state’s transportation infrastructure as fair (5 percent) or poor (26 percent).

But in the same poll, 65 percent at least somewhat approved of Baker’s handling of transportation, about the same as his 67 percent favorable rating. But only 11 percent “strongly approved,” so the shape of that approval is not that different than the 62 percent who gave Maura Healey an A, B, or C for her handling of transportation.

So residents have low opinions of transportation and the T, but they are giving governors a passing mark. Why the disconnect? One reason is there is plenty of blame to go around. Past polls and focus groups have pointed the finger at the T itself, the Legislature, and governors. Some focus group participants have blamed the Boston mayor, who until recently didn’t even have a seat on the T’s board.

The opaque and complicated governance of the T may also be making it hard for residents to know who is accountable. When Baker wanted to create a new board to oversee the T in 2015, a key lawmaker was critical, saying the plan would create another layer of bureaucracy between the T and elected officials. Whether that was the intention or not, Baker’s seeming invulnerability to problems at the T suggests those layers of bureaucracy have had an insulating effect.

It may also be that approval on transportation is more a function of general approval or favorability. Baker was perennially among the most popular governors in the nation, with approvals and favorable ratings in the high 60s and 70s. Healey’s job approval is in the 50s, with favorable ratings slightly lower, in part because a sizable share of residents remain unsure about her or do not recognize her name. Healey’s numbers are very healthy, but they are a step or two down from Baker’s stratospheric popularity.

Most residents are simply not following state level politics closely. Their general impression of the governor is likely their starting point for approval on any given issue. They then calibrate up or down based on whatever they’ve heard recently in the news about a given issue. It follows then that Healey may be polling lower than Baker on transportation, even if many of the issues she is dealing with can be traced back to her predecessor.

Richard Parr is senior research director at the MassINC Polling Group.

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FROM THE 30,000-foot view of national politics, Massachusetts looks pretty uniformly blue. It is one of the most reliably Democratic states in the Electoral College, it sends an all-Democratic delegation to Congress. And, despite our affinity for moderate Republican governors, Beacon Hill is now firmly in one-party control.

But zooming in on the map reveals clear political regions within the state. Election maps from governor and Senate races over the past several decades shows the gradual consolidation of red and blue zones. In the 1970s, Massachusetts was a patchwork of red and blue towns. By the 1990s, distinct sections start to coalesce: blue in Boston and its suburbs and in western Massachusetts; between them, a collar of red across central Massachusetts and wrapping north towards the New Hampshire border and down into the South Coast.

These political regions influence public opinion on a variety of issues beyond the ballot box. To illustrate this, we’ve created an interactive map showing responses to several questions from the CommonWealth Beacon poll – from President Biden’s approval rating to views on the migrant crisis – across six distinct regions of the state: west, central, southeast, the outer suburbs between I-95 and 495, the inner suburbs, and cities inside 95 (the old Route 128) and Suffolk County.

The results (toplines, crosstabs) largely track with the partisanship of these regions. Biden and the state’s two US senators are most popular inside Route 95 and in the west, and less so in between. Gov. Maura Healey’s approval shows a similar pattern, with more relative strength in the outer belt of Boston suburbs.

These divides extend to matters of policy as well. Two-thirds or more of those surveyed inside I-95 and 56 percent in the west support housing migrants in the state’s emergency shelter system. Less than half hold that view elsewhere. The most liberal regions are also more likely to think that the state’s policies on abortion and LGBTQ+ issues are a competitive advantage for the state, although the difference is sharper on abortion.

The partisan pattern is a little less clear on questions that venture farther away from politics. About half of residents in Boston and its innermost suburbs think the state’s best days are ahead, compared to only 37 percent in the outer suburbs and 31 percent in the southeast region. But central Massachusetts is feeling more optimistic (42 percent), and the West is a little less hopeful than its liberal politics might predict (41 percent).

When comparing quality of life in Massachusetts to other states, it appears that proximity to the capital city may matter more than ideology. Over half of residents in the three regions inside Route 495 think the quality of there is better than in other states. Less than half in the central, southeast, and western Massachusetts sections think so. The map on this question looks more like a bullseye centered on Boston than a map of election results. It’s a reminder that, even in this era of extreme polarization, politics explains a lot, but it doesn’t explain everything.

Richard Parr is senior research director at the MassINC Polling Group.

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WHEN MASSACHUSETTS VOTERS approved a new surtax on income over $1 million last year, it was clear what that money was supposed to go to: transportation and education. But how much should go to each? 

A new poll from The MassINC Polling Group (topline, crosstabs) finds that just under half of voters (47 percent) favor an even split between the two areas of spending. Among the rest there was a slight preference for education: 21 percent favored more money for education and some transportation, compared to 10 percent who wanted more for transportation. Only a few voters wanted to see the money go only to transportation or education exclusively with nothing for the other priority (7 percent each). Massachusetts voters have remained remarkably consistent on the issue, with distribution of opinion in the new poll nearly identical to a previous version of the question MPG asked in December 2021.

An even split is the top choice across demographic groups in the poll and is preferred by about half of women (51 percent) and those 60 or older (53 percent). The next most popular option, spending more on education and some on transportation, is also consistent across groups but is highest among Democrats and among those under age 45, a group that is more likely to have kids in school (26 percent each). Non-white respondents were also more likely to want more money spent on education (27 percent versus 19 percent among white respondents). 

Regardless of their spending preferences, voters are in broad agreement about keeping the surtax separate from other state revenues. Two-thirds (67 percent) say the income surtax proceeds should flow into a trust fund specifically for education and transportation. Only 19 percent want it to go into the general fund with other tax dollars. The trust fund proposal gets majority support across every demographic group surveyed. 

The poll comes as lawmakers and advocates begin to hash out how the new tax will be implemented, accounted for, and ultimately spent. Both the left-leaning Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center and the center-right Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation have called for directing the surtax into one or more trust funds. “This would allow for better tracking of how these funds will be allocated within the budget through line-item appropriations or operating transfers,” argued MassBudget, in a memo to the Healey administration.  

Figuring out how the revenue will be spent will likely be more controversial. MPG frequently polls on transportation and education topics, and the price tags of policy proposals that garner majority support far exceed the amount of money the new surtax is likely to bring to state coffers, estimated to be $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion per year. From getting the MBTA back on track to helping students catch up on learning loss from the pandemic, the to-do list in both transportation and education gets long, and pricey, fast. 

We’ll get the first hint of how Beacon Hill leaders are planning to use the surtax when Gov. Maura Healey unveils her first budget in a few weeks. As lawmakers and advocates gear up to push for their spending priorities for this new revenue, they should know that public opinion starts out pretty evenly balanced between transportation and education. 

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WHEN LAWMAKERS passed permanent no-excuse mail-in voting earlier this year, advocates billed it as a way to increase voter participation. 

“This is a historic bill that is going to have more people participate, and when more people participate, democracy wins,” said Sen. Barry Finegold, an Andover Democrat and the lead Senate negotiator on the bill, when the final version of the VOTES Act was released from a conference committee.  

Yet in the first election since the law change, there is little evidence that mail-in voting increased turnout. Rather, it simply shifted when people voted. 

Charles Stewart, a professor of political science at MIT and director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, said that result tracks with political science research, which has found that voting methods have little effect on voter turnout.  

“Mail-in voting generally does not increase turnout in generally high-turnout elections,” Stewart said, adding that he would consider state primaries broadly as high turnout elections, despite just 21.8 percent of voters casting ballots this September.  

Especially in primary elections, mail-in voting “is primarily a convenience method for high propensity voters,” Stewart said. In other words, it helps retain those voters that would have voted anyway. Stewart said that does not mean mail-in voting is not useful, both as a convenience for voters and for election administrators who can shift their workload to process some votes early. “There may be good policy reasons to do it, but absentee balloting as a method of increasing turnout is regularly oversold,” he said. 

As CommonWealth reported, the last two state primaries have featured the highest number of voters since 1990, but that is mainly because there are more people registered to vote. The turnout rate of 21.8 percent in this year’s primary is equal to the 2018 primary and similar to other recent years. An analysis of voting rates in individual communities also found little correlation between high rates of mail-in voting and higher turnout. 

CommonWealth looked at the top 20 percent of communities based on total voter turnout and compared them to the top 20 percent of communities in terms of mail-in voting. A similar comparison was done of the 20 percent of communities with the lowest voter turnout and the lowest vote-by-mail rates. In both cases, just seven or eight communities out of 70 were the same across the two measures. That means the communities with the highest rates of mail-in balloting were not generally the communities with the highest rates of voter participation, and the communities with the least voting done by mail were not the communities with the lowest rates of voter participation. 

A second analysis compared voter turnout in 2022 and 2018 in the communities with the highest rates of mail-in voting. Overall, turnout in both primaries was 21.8 percent statewide. In the 70 communities with the highest rates of mail-in voting, turnout rates were similar between the two years, with a modest average increase of 1.6 percentage points between 2018 and 2022. There was virtually no change in turnout among the 70 towns with the lowest percentage of votes cast by mail.  

The main differences in turnout appeared to be geographic, reflecting the different elections and the intensity of races in certain regions. For example, a big cluster of communities with lower turnout in 2022 was in western Massachusetts, which had a lot of competitive legislative races in 2018.  

The southeastern region tended to have higher turnout in 2022, possibly because it is a more conservative region in a year with a competitive Republican governor’s race. Boston may have had higher turnout in 2018 because of the congressional primary that year between then-incumbent Democratic US Rep. Michael Capuano and challenger Ayanna Pressley, who defeated him. The Merrimack Valley had higher turnout in 2018, probably because of that year’s congressional primary, which now-Congresswoman Lori Trahan won. 

Stewart said that makes sense because the reason most people choose to vote is because interest in a campaign or candidate compels them to vote. “People decide to vote independent of the modes that are available to them,” Stewart said. 

There was a slight correlation showing that towns where more voters decided to cast ballots on Election Day rather than mail them in had higher turnouts. Partisanship may provide a partial explanation for that phenomenon. 

Republicans in Massachusetts were vocally opposed to the permanent expansion of mail-in voting, and President Donald Trump before the 2020 election raised concerns about fraud in mail-in voting. As a result, Republican primary voters were far less likely than voters in the Democratic primary to cast their ballots by mail. More than half – 52 percent – of ballots were cast by mail in the Democratic primary compared to just 27.4 percent of ballots in the Republican primary. So high Election Day turnout could indicate areas where there were more Republicans voting overall. 

The towns that had both high turnout overall and high mail-in voting tended to be Democratic-leaning, educated communities – places like Northampton, Arlington, Concord, and Acton. 

Janet Domenitz, executive director of MassPIRG, which is part of the election modernization coalition that advocated for the passage of no-excuse voting by mail, said even if mail-in voting only slightly boosted turnout, that does not mean it is unimportant. “I don’t want to sound corny, but every additional vote is important,” Domenitz said. “We’re trying to open the door, not floodgates, but the door, to eliminate obstacles to voting.” 

Domenitz added that it will also take several elections before it is possible to draw conclusions about voter behavior. The first mail-in voting occurred at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, so this is the first election in which it was used in a non-emergency situation. “It seems to me like we need to wait another cycle or two to go this is what’s actually happening when we’re in regular life,” she said. 

Rachel Cobb, an associate professor and chair of political science at Suffolk University, said studies conducted pre-pandemic found that people who voted in alternate ways like mail-in or early voting were also those most likely to vote anyway. “The people who were most likely to vote anyway, which are affluent, white, educated people, took advantage of all of these convenience opportunities even more,” Cobb said. That is the same population, for example, that is used to using the mail for things like Amazon and grocery deliveries. 

“We often as election reformers are interested in increasing turnout among the people who are least likely to turn out, but some of these reforms don’t always do that,” Cobb said. 

Cobb said it will also take time for more people to become aware of mail-in voting and use it. “I think it’s rather astonishing that so many people took advantage of it so quickly,” she said. 

Many of the communities with the highest rates of voting by mail were wealthier suburbs like Acton, Wellesley, Natick, and Lexington. Smaller, rural communities tended to have few people voting by mail. Cities like Boston, Springfield, Worcester, and Lawrence tended to be toward the middle or lower end of communities ranked in terms of percentage of people voting by mail. 

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WHO WON AND who lost yesterday? Of course, there are the candidates who put themselves and their ideas out there for voters. They all were winners for democracy, though the hard reality of election results will brand some winners and others losers. But beyond the candidates, every election brings another set of winners and losers. These are the people whose actions in the run-up to the election meant they, too, had a lot riding on its outcome. Here’s a quick look at some winners and losers whose names weren’t on any ballot. 

WINNERS 

After the results reporting debacle in the Boston mayoral preliminary, activists decided to take matters into their own hands. Enter Matt McCloskey from West Roxbury, who lined up volunteers to report results from every precinct in the city and organized them into a Google Sheet. The Open Elections Results Portal left the Associated Press in the dust, with precinct-level results posted and updated continually starting soon after polls closed at 8 pm. It also enabled others like The MassINC Polling Group and Rivera Consulting to build maps and models, respectively, off the data. 

Early passengers on the Wu train must be blowing its whistle today, including City Councilor Lydia Edwards, Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins, and state Reps. Aaron Michlewitz and Mike Moran. Now Michlewitz and Moran have the harder task of negotiating Wu’s agenda, much of which requires sign-off from Beacon Hill.

Former congressman Michael Capuano and current Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley locked horns in their race three years ago — but they agreed on a winning candidate in the race to succeed outgoing Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone: City Councilor Katjana Ballantyne, who cruised to victory over fellow City Councilor Will Mbah. 

Thomas McGee opted not to seek reelection as mayor in Lynn — but he backed the winning candidate to take his spot, Jared Nicholson. 

Diversity. On a night that saw historic gains for people of color nationwide, Asian-American Michelle Wu became Boston’s first non-white elected mayor. Holyoke got its first Latino mayor in Joshua Garcia, Northampton elected an African-American woman and man to City Council while Delmarina Lopez became the first person of color to sit on the Chicopee City Council. Worcester city councilor-elect Thu Nguyen, who is of Vietnamese descent, became the first non-binary person ever elected in Massachusetts. In its first election since changing the voting system in response to a lawsuit by minority groups, Lowell elected six people of color to the school committee and city council.

Rivera Consulting. Boston finally got a taste of what a campaign’s internal vote tally looks like, with a nifty (and public) tracker from the wizards at the Boston-based political consulting firm. Far from relying on raw vote counts without context, the spreadsheet showed what Wu and Essaibi George would need in each precinct to remain competitive based on where they were expected to do well. National elections have had this for a while. This was a first for Boston.   

Pollsters. Four polls, including one from MassINC Polling Group, were released after the Boston mayoral preliminary election, showing winning margins for Michelle Wu of between 25 and 32 points. With the Boston Elections Department showing an unofficial margin of 28 points, the polls were right on (if we do say so ourselves). They also showed the shape of Wu’s coalition, and brought early attention to ways Boston’s politics had changed, well before votes were cast.

Former mayor Ray Flynn can pop the champagne, Miami Dolphins-style, because he retains the record for the highest vote total in a modern Boston mayoral election (“modern” meaning after the city’s population cratered in the 1960s and 70s). As Ari Ofsevit points out on Twitter, Wu’s 91,000 votes is the most since Flynn racked up nearly 130,000 in 1983.  

METZA METZA

Gov. Charlie Baker wasn’t exactly a winner or a loser, landing somewhere in between. He raises most of the money for the Massachusetts Majority super PAC, which spent nearly $260,000 on candidates in 19 municipal races, according to its latest report. Of the 19, 13 won and six lost. Two of the losers were former or current Republican legislators running for mayoral positions — Donald Humason in Westfield and James Kelcourse in Amesbury

Baker is weighing whether to run for the third term, and now he needs to contend with an energetic new Boston mayor, with a landslide mandate, who wants to make big changes to the MBTA. Transportation advocates have long sniped at Baker for neglecting transportation, and now they have a prominent voice in the mayor’s office to push their agenda forward. The bromance Baker enjoyed with former mayor Marty Walsh may be gone, but keep in mind Wu needs Baker’s help to get many of her big agenda items through Beacon Hill. So Wu will have to find common ground, one way or another, with the man in the corner office.

LOSERS 

The two similar sounding super PACs that dumped nearly $2 million into the Boston mayor’s race on behalf of Annissa Essaibi George, with a chunk of it devoted to unfounded attacks on Michelle Wu. The biggest losers: New Balance’s Jim Davis, who poured more than $1 million into the losing cause, and former Boston police commissioner William Gross, the face of the effort in TV and newspaper ads.

The Associated Press: Their election night vote count in the Boston mayor’s race lagged so far behind as to be irrelevant. The crowd-sourced count was the one drawing attention from election night watchers. The campaigns also had data well ahead of the AP, conceding defeat and declaring victory well ahead of the AP’s official declaration. 

Former mayor Marty Walsh. Walsh famously stepped on Michelle Wu’s campaign announcement last year before being tapped to serve in the Biden cabinet. Wu might have gotten a measure of payback by winning Walsh’s home precinct in the Lower Mills section of Dorchester. Walsh did not endorse either candidate in the race, but fellow Dorchester resident Annissa Essaibi George was widely seen as closer to the Walsh orbit, and Walsh’s mother appeared with Essaibi George at her Savin HIll polling place yesterday.

“We have real serious concerns about Michelle Wu,” Michael Ross, a former Boston city councilor now practicing real estate law, told Globe columnist Shirley Leung before the September preliminary, giving voice to a view among some business types that Wu would crush the city’s development boom. The mayor-elect may have serious concerns now about any projects Ross is trying to fast-track through City Hall. 

Rev. Eugene Rivers lobbed a last-minute grenade at Michelle Wu, issuing a press release over the weekend leveling a wildly untethered charge of racially discriminatory lending practices against Wu’s husband, whose name he misspelled, and the bank where he works, and demanding that Wu denounce the practice or withdraw from the race.  

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