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Politics of Massachusetts

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The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is often categorized politically as progressive and liberal. All of the state’s U.S. representatives and senators are Democrats. Democrats also form the large majority of the state’s legislature, though the state has a history of electing Republican governors. As with most states, the two main political parties are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

History[edit]

Antebellum[edit]

In the early 19th century, Boston was a center of the socially progressive movements in antebellum New England. The abolitionist, women's rights,[1] 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.[citation needed] The reorganized Democratic Party remained largely ineffective during this time, typically gaining power only when the Republicans overreached on issues such as temperance.[citation needed]

Gilded Age and Progressive Era[edit]

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".[2]

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.

Postwar[edit]

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).[3] 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,[4] after $29 million was spent on the project.[5] 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.[5][6]

Politics[edit]

State[edit]

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. Despite the state's strong Democratic lean, Republicans have been able to win the governor's office. They held it almost continuously from 1991 to 2023 with the only exception being Democrat Deval Patrick (2007–2015). Although, they have mostly been among the most moderate Republican politicians in the nation, especially William Weld. Two of these governors, Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift, took office when their predecessors resigned to take other positions. Massachusetts’ most recent Republican governor was 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[7]
Year Democratic Republican
2022 63.7% 1,584,403 34.6% 859,343
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[edit]

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

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. Republicans have not won a house since 1994. Massachusetts currently has 9 House districts In the 118th Congress, all 9 are held by Democrats. There are as follows:

Massachusetts is part of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts in the federal judiciary. The district's cases are appealed to the Boston-based United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Massachusetts has two Democratic U.S. Senators, belonging to Class 1 and 2, they are Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, respectively, both serving since 2013.

In presidential elections, Massachusetts supported Republicans from 1856 through 1924, barring 1912, where due to vote splitting between former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt running as a Progressive against incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft, Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson ended up becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Massachusetts, though only winning with a plurality of only 35.53% of the vote. From 1928 up until the 1960s, it was considered a Democratic-leaning swing state. 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 1928, the state has been carried by a Republican presidential candidate four times, for Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, and in 1980, when Ronald Reagan unseated incumbent Jimmy Carter and in his 1984 landslide. However, in the latter two 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 further, voting for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1988. Republicans have not carried any county since that election. In the 2004 election, Massachusetts gave native son John Kerry 61.9% of the vote and his largest margin of victory in any state.[8][a] Barack Obama carried the state with 61.8% of the vote in 2008[9] and 60.7% in 2012. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the state with 61.0% of the vote, with Massachusetts trending to the left, opposite the nation. In 2020, Massachusetts was the second-most Democratic state, following Vermont.[a] 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.

United States presidential election results for Massachusetts[10]
Year Republican / Whig Democratic Third party
No.  % No.  % No.  %
2020 1,167,202 32.14% 2,382,202 65.60% 81,998 2.26%
2016 1,090,893 32.81% 1,995,196 60.01% 238,957 7.19%
2012 1,188,460 37.52% 1,921,761 60.67% 57,546 1.82%
2008 1,108,854 35.99% 1,904,098 61.80% 68,117 2.21%
2004 1,071,109 36.78% 1,803,800 61.94% 37,479 1.29%
2000 878,502 32.50% 1,616,487 59.80% 207,995 7.70%
1996 718,107 28.09% 1,571,763 61.47% 266,915 10.44%
1992 805,049 29.03% 1,318,662 47.54% 649,863 23.43%
1988 1,194,635 45.37% 1,401,415 53.23% 36,755 1.40%
1984 1,310,936 51.22% 1,239,606 48.43% 8,911 0.35%
1980 1,057,631 41.90% 1,053,802 41.75% 412,865 16.36%
1976 1,030,276 40.44% 1,429,475 56.11% 87,807 3.45%
1972 1,112,078 45.23% 1,332,540 54.20% 14,138 0.58%
1968 766,844 32.89% 1,469,218 63.01% 95,690 4.10%
1964 549,727 23.44% 1,786,422 76.19% 8,649 0.37%
1960 976,750 39.55% 1,487,174 60.22% 5,556 0.22%
1956 1,393,197 59.32% 948,190 40.37% 7,119 0.30%
1952 1,292,325 54.22% 1,083,525 45.46% 7,548 0.32%
1948 909,370 43.16% 1,151,788 54.66% 45,988 2.18%
1944 921,350 46.99% 1,035,296 52.80% 4,019 0.20%
1940 939,700 46.36% 1,076,522 53.11% 10,771 0.53%
1936 768,613 41.76% 942,716 51.22% 129,028 7.01%
1932 736,959 46.64% 800,148 50.64% 43,007 2.72%
1928 775,566 49.15% 792,758 50.24% 9,499 0.60%
1924 703,476 62.26% 280,831 24.86% 145,530 12.88%
1920 681,153 68.55% 276,691 27.84% 35,874 3.61%
1916 268,784 50.54% 247,894 46.61% 15,154 2.85%
1912 155,948 31.95% 173,408 35.53% 158,701 32.52%
1908 265,966 58.21% 155,543 34.04% 35,410 7.75%
1904 257,822 57.92% 165,746 37.24% 21,541 4.84%
1900 238,866 57.59% 156,997 37.85% 18,941 4.57%
1896 278,976 69.47% 105,711 26.32% 16,881 4.20%
1892 202,814 51.87% 176,813 45.22% 11,401 2.92%
1888 183,892 53.42% 151,590 44.04% 8,761 2.55%
1884 146,724 48.36% 122,352 40.33% 34,307 11.31%
1880 165,198 58.53% 111,720 39.58% 5,347 1.89%
1876 150,064 57.80% 108,777 41.90% 779 0.30%
1872 133,455 69.20% 59,195 30.69% 214 0.11%
1868 136,379 69.76% 59,103 30.23% 26 0.01%
1864 126,742 72.22% 48,745 27.78% 3 0.00%
1860 106,684 62.80% 34,370 20.23% 28,822 16.97%
1856 108,172 63.61% 39,244 23.08% 22,632 13.31%
1852 52,683 41.45% 44,569 35.07% 29,851 23.49%
1848 61,072 45.32% 35,281 26.18% 38,395 28.49%
1844 67,062 50.79% 53,039 40.17% 11,936 9.04%
1840 72,852 57.44% 52,355 41.28% 1,618 1.28%
1836 41,201 55.13% 33,486 44.81% 45 0.06%

Party registration[edit]

Main articles: Political parties and political designations in Massachusetts and Political party strength in Massachusetts
Party registration as of February 2023[11]
Party Total voters Percentage
Unenrolled 2,920,375 61.08%
Democratic 1,386,550 29.00%
Republican 421,333 8.81%
Political designations 36,750 0.77%
Libertarian 16,548 0.35%
Total 4,781,556 100%

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 statewide is on the rise while both Democratic and Republican registration are in decline.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b However, the greatest margin of Democratic victory was in the District of Columbia.

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Timeline of Woman Suffrage in Massachusetts". Primary Research. 14 November 2009. Retrieved February 20, 2021.
  2. ^ Susan Page and Jill Lawrence (2004-07-11). "Does 'Massachusetts liberal' label still matter?". USA Today. Retrieved 2009-10-17.
  3. ^ Robert Surbrug (2009). Beyond Vietnam: The Politics of Protest in Massachusetts, 1974-1990. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 9781613761687.
  4. ^ Some of the Major Events in NU's History Since the 1966 Affiliation Archived 2013-12-24 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b Utilities Drop Nuclear Power Plant Plans Ocala Star-Banner, January 4, 1981.
  6. ^ Anna Gyorgy (1980). No Nukes: Everyone's Guide to Nuclear Power South End Press, ISBN 0-89608-006-4, pp. 393-394.
  7. ^ Leip, David. "General Election Results – Massachusetts". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved November 18, 2016.
  8. ^ "Federal Elections 2004 (page 22)" (PDF). Federal Election Commission. Retrieved 2009-10-17.
  9. ^ "2008 Presidential Popular Vote Summary" (PDF). Federal Election Commission. Retrieved 2009-10-17.
  10. ^ Leip, David. "Presidential General Election Results Comparison – Massachusetts". US Election Atlas. Retrieved October 26, 2022.
  11. ^ "Registration Statistics". Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth. Retrieved February 20, 2021.

External links[edit]

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