“With its population of Black churchgoers and white retirees and suburbanites, the South Carolina Democratic primary became what its GOP equivalent had been before the Trump era — the place where insurgencies went to die.”
– Jonathan Martin of Politico on X
Hey @jmart — if you’re into exploring insurgent graveyards, why not add Massachusetts to your itinerary this fall?
Go ahead, type “Massachusetts voters anti-establishment backlash” into your favorite AI portal. It will tell you revolutionary energy is busting out all over our troubled slice of heaven.
Allegedly overripe Boomer pols like Ed Markey and Steve Lynch are battling fresh-faced primary challengers. Voter anxiety over cost-of-living issues seems impervious to Maura Healey’s assurances that she’s on top of it. Two years of establishment stalling of Diana DiZoglio’s audit crusade have supremely ticked off the huge majority that supported it. And every one of the record-tying nine ballot questions in November reflects some form of discontent with Beacon Hill.
Forget the Tall Ships Parade of Sail — Massachusetts governance is a parade of fail, and an infuriated electorate is poised to throw the bums out.
Right?
Not so fast.
Head-to-head polling in Markey’s contest with Seth Moulton has tightened recently, but the incumbent still holds leads outside the margin of error. And the key engine of Moulton’s game plan has yet to find traction. After six years of ageist buzz starting with Joe Kennedy’s 2020 challenge to Markey, boiling over with Joe Biden’s 2024 meltdown and reheated now by Moulton, a recent Suffolk poll found only 24% say age is “a big factor,” while the rest say it’s a minor issue (41%) or “doesn’t matter to me” (33%). (An April survey of Democratic primary voters had similar results.)
The lone public poll in Lynch’s Eighth Congressional District primary had him leading much-younger challenger Patrick Roath by 26 points. Yes, Mike Capuano held double-digit polling leads over Ayanna Pressley before she sent him packing in their 2018 primary, but that was in the state’s most liberal CD. The Eighth is arguably the South Carolina of Massachusetts congressional districts.
What about Healey, who you’d think was on the banana peel if you ingest too much dyspeptic media? She shreds GOP frontrunner Mike Minogue 56-31% despite months of prolific spending by the Republican.
No wonder. In Suffolk polling, 77% of registered voters surveyed described the state economy as excellent (5%), good (36%) or fair (36%); just 21% called it poor. Seven in ten say they “have enough money to live comfortably.” While a mere 20% of them say the US as “heading in the right direction,” 51% describe Massachusetts that way.
Not quite the profile of an angry mob sharpening their pitchforks.
Some DiZoglio fans wanted her to surf the anti-establishment wave by challenging Healey for governor. She was wise not to. The April Suffolk poll of Democratic primary voters had her with the lowest favorable rating — by far — among eight prominent Democrats, including Healey; 31% had never heard of her.
What of those anti-establishment ballot questions? That is sometimes the vehicle voters choose to vent their spleen instead of ousting incumbents. Then again, even angry voters often default to “no” in response to questions that are confusing or esoteric.
And we won’t even mention speculation that both state Sens. Will Brownsberger and Nick Collins are poised to trounce little-known challengers propped up by Michelle Wu as payback for opposing her commercial property-tax plans.
It’s simple: since 2020, the incumbent re-election rate for state and federal offices in Massachusetts has never fallen below 99%.
In politics, sometimes room for improvement means time for a change. Sometimes it does not.
No need to wait for the 2028 South Carolina primary to find this out. Visiting hours for Massachusetts insurgencies this fall start at 8:01pm on November 3.
