Politics of Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is often categorized politically as socially progressive and liberal. As with most states, the two main political parties are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

History

Antebellum

In the early 19th century, Boston was a center of the socially progressive movements in antebellum New England. The abolitionist, women's rights, and temperance movements all originated in New England, and Boston became a stronghold of such movements. Boston also flourished culturally with the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne becoming popular. The belief in social progress was strongly influenced by the Second Great Awakening sweeping the Northern United States at the time, and Boston gained a reputation for radical politics. During the Civil War, the Radical Republicans had strong support from Massachusetts. Tension, however, existed between more moderate and conservative Bostonians and the abolitionists. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was almost killed by a mob when his office was raided in 1837.

The state was politically dominated by Federalists from the late 1790s until the late 1820s, a longer period than in other states. Massachusetts voted for the Federalist presidential candidate in 1808, 1812, and 1816. From then until the 1850s, it was dominated by the Whig Party, which presented a socially liberal but pro-business agenda, against a fractured Democratic Party and occasional single-issue third parties. In 1850, the Democrats made common cause with the abolitionist Free Soil Party to gain control of both the governor's seat and the state legislature for the first time. This coalition did not last, and the existing party structures were effectively wiped out by the 1853 landslide victory of the Know Nothing movement, which enacted major reform legislation during its three years in power. The Republican Party was organized in 1854, and came to power in 1857. It would dominate the state's politics until the 1930s, first as the reform party opposed to slavery, then as a pro-business, generally anti-labor and temperance-oriented party. The reorganized Democratic Party remained largely ineffective during this time, typically gaining power only when the Republicans overreached on issues such as temperance.

Gilded Age and Progressive Era

After the Civil War, radical politics faded in popularity. With Reconstruction failing, the progressive climate gave way into a conservative one, and civil rights groups disappeared as Boston melted into the mainstream of American politics. During the first half of the 1900s, Boston was socially conservative and strongly under the influence of Methodist minister J. Frank Chase and his New England Watch and Ward Society, founded in 1878. In 1903, the Old Corner Bookstore was raided and fined for selling Boccaccio's Decameron. Howard Johnson's got its start when Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude was banned in Boston, and the production had to be moved to Quincy. In 1927, works by Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, and Sherwood Anderson were removed from bookstore shelves. "Banned in Boston" on a book's cover could actually boost sales. Burlesque artists such as Sally Rand needed to modify their act when performing at Boston's Old Howard Theater. The clean version of a performance used to be known as the "Boston version." By 1929, the Watch and Ward society was perceived to be in decline when it failed in its attempt to ban Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, but as late as 1935 it succeeded in banning Lillian Hellman's play The Children's Hour. Censorship was enforced by city officials, notably the "city censor" within the Boston Licensing Division. That position was held by Richard J. Sinnott from 1959 until the office was abolished on March 2, 1982. In modern times, few such puritanical social mores persist. Massachusetts has since gained a reputation as being a politically liberal state and is often used as an archetype of liberalism, hence the usage of the phrase "Massachusetts liberal".

In the 1920s, Democrats Joseph Buell Ely (governor in the early 1930s) and David I. Walsh (governor in the 1910s, then US Senator) successfully organized a wide array of liberal Yankees, Irish Americans, and other immigrant groups (eastern Europeans, Italians, Greeks, and French Canadians among them) into an effective party structure, that has since come to dominate the state's political establishment. This goal had eluded Irish and Boston interests led by James Michael Curley and John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, who were a significant but not always dominating force in the party. Fitzgerald's daughter Rose married Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., beginning the Kennedy family dynasty.

Post-war

In the 1970s and 1980s, Massachusetts was the center of the anti-nuclear power movement, opposition to the continuing Cold War arms race, and Ronald Reagan’s policies of intervention in Central America. Political figures who opposed nuclear power included Senator Edward Kennedy, Senator John Kerry (Vietnam veteran), Tip O’Neill (Speaker of the House), and Michael Dukakis (Governor). The Montague Nuclear Power Plant was to consist of two 1,150-megawatt nuclear reactors to be located in Montague, Massachusetts. The project was proposed in 1973 and canceled in 1980, after $29 million was spent on the project. In 1974, farmer Sam Lovejoy disabled the weather-monitoring tower which had been erected at the Montague site. Lovejoy's action galvanized local public opinion against the plant.

Politics

State

Main article: Government of Massachusetts

Massachusetts has a bicameral state legislature, collectively known as the Massachusetts General Court. It is made of the 160-seat Massachusetts House of Representatives and the 40-seat Massachusetts Senate. The Massachusetts Democratic Party holds large supermajorities in both houses.

The Governor of Massachusetts is the executive of the state government, and is elected every four years. Prior to 1966, governors served two-year terms, and prior to 1920, governors served one-year terms. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is the highest court in the commonwealth. Although Republicans have held the governor's office almost continuously since 1991 (the only exception being Democrat Deval Patrick (2007–2015)), they have mostly been among the most moderate Republican politicians in the nation, especially William Weld (the first of four recent Republican governors). Two of these governors, Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift, took office when their predecessors resigned to take other positions. Massachusetts’ current governor is centrist Republican Charlie Baker, who was re-elected to his second term in 2018 with 66.6% of the vote.

Gubernatorial election results

Gubernatorial election results Year Democratic Republican 2018 33.1% 886,281 66.6% 1,781,982 2014 46.5% 1,004,408 48.4% 1,044,573 2010 48.4% 1,112,283 42.0% 964,866 2006 55.6% 1,234,984 35.3% 784,342 2002 44.9% 985,981 49.8% 1,091,988 1998 47.4% 901,843 50.8% 967,160 1994 28.3% 611,650 70.8% 1,533,390 1990 46.9% 1,099,878 50.2% 1,175,817 1986 68.7% 1,157,786 31.2% 525,364 1982 59.5% 1,219,109 36.6% 749,679 1978 51.2% 1,030,294 46.0% 926,072 1974 53.5% 992,284 42.3% 784,353 1970 42.8% 799,269 56.7% 1,058,623 1966 36.9% 752,720 62.6% 1,277,358 1964 49.3% 1,153,416 50.3% 1,176,462 1962 49.9% 1,053,322 49.7% 1,047,891 1960 46.8% 1,130,810 52.5% 1,269,295 1958 56.2% 1,067,020 43.1% 818,463 1956 52.8% 1,234,618 46.9% 1,096,759 1954 47.8% 910,087 51.8% 985,339 1952 49.3% 1,161,499 49.9% 1,175,955 1950 56.3% 1,074,570 43.1% 824,069 1948 59.0% 1,239,247 40.5% 849,895 1946 45.3% 762,743 54.1% 911,152 1944 53.6% 1,048,284 46.0% 897,708 1942 45.0% 630,265 54.1% 758,402 1940 49.5% 993,635 49.7% 999,223 1938 46.1% 793,884 53.3% 941,465 1936 47.6% 867,743 46.1% 839,740 1934 49.7% 736,463 42.3% 627,413 1932 52.8% 825,479 45.0% 704,576 1930 49.5% 606,902 48.2% 590,238 1928 48.8% 750,137 50.1% 769,372 1926 40.3% 407,389 58.8% 595,006 1924 42.2% 490,010 56.0% 650,817 1922 45.4% 404,192 52.2% 464,873 1920 30.2% 290,350 67.0% 643,869 1919 37.0% 192,673 60.9% 317,774 1918 46.8% 197,828 50.9% 214,863 1917 35.0% 135,676 58.3% 226,145 1916 43.7% 229,883 52.5% 276,123 1915 45.7% 229,550 47.0% 235,863 1914 45.9% 210,442 43.4% 198,627 1913 39.8% 183,267 25.3% 116,705 1912 40.3% 193,184 30.0% 143,597 1911 48.8% 214,897 47.0% 206,795 1910 52.0% 229,352 44.1% 194,173

Federal

Treemap of the 2020 United States presidential election in Massachusetts.
Biden:
     50-60%      60-70%
     70-80%      80-90%

Subsequent to the 2010 national census and the 2011 reallocation of United States House of Representatives districts among the states, Massachusetts has nine seats, all of which are held by Democrats. Massachusetts has two Democratic U.S. Senators, belonging to Class 1 and 2.

Further information: United States Congressional Delegations from Massachusetts

In presidential elections, Massachusetts supported Republicans through 1924, and was considered a swing state until the 1980s. During the 1972 presidential election, Massachusetts was the only state to give its electoral votes to George McGovern, the Democratic nominee (the District of Columbia also voted for McGovern). Following the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974, two famous bumper stickers were sold in Boston, one saying "Don't blame me, I'm from Massachusetts," and the other read "Nixon 49, America 1". Since then, the state has been carried by a Republican presidential candidate twice, in 1980, when Ronald Reagan unseated incumbent Jimmy Carter and in his 1984 landslide. However, in both elections, Reagan's margin of victory in Massachusetts was the smallest of any state he carried.

More recently, it has shifted to the Democratic Party, voting for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1988. In the 2004 election, Massachusetts gave native son John Kerry 61.9% of the vote and his largest margin of victory in any state. Barack Obama carried the state with 61.8% of the vote in 2008 and 60.7% in 2012. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the state with 61.0% of the vote, with Massachusetts trending opposite the nation. In 2020, Massachusetts was the second-most Democratic state, following Vermont. Joe Biden won 65.6% of the vote, the highest share for any candidate since Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory in 1964.

The Democratic shift is also evident on the congressional ballot. In 2020, four of Massachusetts’ nine U.S. House Representatives ran unopposed. In the same year’s U.S. Senate election, incumbent Ed Markey received two-thirds of the vote, even slightly surpassing Biden’s vote percentage; compared to 2010, when Massachusetts’ other U.S. Senate seat was up for election and Republican Scott Brown received 51.9% of the vote.

Presidential election results

Presidential elections results Year Republican Democratic 2020 32.14% 1,167,202 65.60% 2,382,202 2016 32.81% 1,090,893 60.01% 1,995,196 2012 37.51% 1,188,314 60.65% 1,921,290 2008 36.20% 1,105,908 61.80% 1,894,067 2004 36.83% 1,070,109 61.92% 1,803,801 2000 32.51% 878,502 59.93% 1,616,487 1996 28.11% 718,107 61.52% 1,571,763 1992 29.04% 805,049 47.51% 1,318,662 1988 45.42% 1,194,635 53.23% 1,401,416 1984 51.22% 1,310,936 48.43% 1,239,606 1980 41.90% 1,057,631 41.75% 1,053,802 1976 40.44% 1,030,276 56.11% 1,429,475 1972 45.23% 1,112,078 54.20% 1,332,540 1968 32.89% 766,844 63.01% 1,469,218 1964 23.44% 549,727 76.19% 1,786,422 1960 39.55% 976,750 60.22% 1,487,174 1956 59.32% 1,393,197 40.77% 948,190 1952 54.22% 1,292,325 45.46% 1,083,525 1948 43.16% 909,370 54.66% 1,151,788 1944 46.99% 921,350 52.80% 1,035,296 1940 46.36% 939,700 53.11% 1,076,522 1936 41.76% 768,613 51.22% 942,716 1932 46.64% 736,959 50.64% 800,148 1928 49.15% 775,566 50.24% 792,758 1924 62.26% 703,476 24.86% 280,831 1920 68.55% 681,153 27.84% 276,691 1916 50.54% 268,784 46.61% 247,885 1912 31.95% 155,948 35.53% 173,408 1908 58.21% 265,966 34.04% 155,543 1904 57.92% 257,822 37.24% 165,746 1900 57.59% 238,866 37.85% 156,997 1896 69.47% 278,976 26.32% 105,711 1892 51.87% 202,814 45.22% 176,813 1888 53.42% 183,892 44.04% 151,590 1884 48.36% 146,724 40.33% 122,352 1880 58.53% 165,198 39.58% 111,720 1876 57.80% 150,064 41.90% 108,777 1872 69.20% 133,455 30.69% 59,195 1868 69.80% 136,379 30.20% 59,103 1864 72.20% 126,742 27.80% 48,745 1860 62.80% 106,684 20.23% 34,370 1856 63.61% 108,172 23.08% 39,244

Party registration

Main articles: Political parties and political designations in Massachusetts and Political party strength in Massachusetts

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Party registration as of February 2021
Party		Total voters	Percentage
Unenrolled	2,717,293	57.42%
Democratic	1,494,980	31.59%
Republican	459,663	9.71%
Other	60,004	1.27%
Total		4,731,940	100%

Unenrolled voters make up a majority of the state. The only county
with a plurality of Democratic registered voters is Suffolk, home to the
state’s capital and most-populous city, Boston. The percentage of
Unenrolled voters is on the rise.

See also

• Government of Massachusetts
• Elections in Massachusetts
• Political party strength in Massachusetts
• Law of Massachusetts
• List of politics by U.S. state

External links

• Politics of Massachusetts at Curlie
• Massachusetts at Ballotpedia
• Elections in Mass on U.S. Election Atlas website
• Election results and OurCampaigns.com