MA-GOV 2022 Megathread

[MarkD]

Here's a question about one of the executive positions in MA:

William F. Galvin is in his 27th year as Secretary of the Commonwealth. He has won seven consecutive elections to this position, starting in 1994. He recently celebrated his 71st birthday. Is he going to run for an eighth term?

[MarkD]

How about making some predictions?

I think Healey will win by 57% to Diehl's 41%, with 2% for others on the ballot and write-ins. I think Diehl carries Plymouth County and Worcester County by very narrow margins, and gets close to about 45% in Barnstable, Essex, and Hampden Counties too. But Berkshire, Dukes, Franklin, Hampshire, and Suffolk Counties will be at least 2-1 for Healey.

Another thing I'll be looking closely at after the election is how well the GOP does in the state legislature. Two years ago, they only won 3 senate seats - an all-time low - and 30 House seats. But they only had 8 nominees running for the 40 seats in the Senate - which was also an all-time low - and they had only 52 nominees running for the 160 seats in the House. This year, the GOP will have 55 nominees running for the House and they'll have 19 nominees running for the Senate.

In my estimation, they've mostly got the right idea for which seats to try to run for: districts that are more Republican than average for the whole state. I analyzed election results for each of the 200 districts using election results from the last three presidential races, both Senate races in which Liz Warren was the D nominee, and the two gubernatorial elections that Baker won. And I also re-analyzed as many of the districts as I could, using the same data, to see if redistricting raised the Republican vote or raised the Democratic vote. Because precinct boundaries themselves are changing quite significantly in a few cities (Boston, Methuen, Framingham, Cambridge, Worcester), I couldn't do the re-analysis with all 40 senate districts and all 160 house districts, but nevertheless, I could do it with about 3/4s of all the districts (and some districts did not change at all).

Of the 19 senate districts Republicans are running in, only one of them is too Democratic to have any hope of winning. Second Plymouth and Norfolk District (Brockton, Avon, Halifax, Hanson, Whitman, and 5 of the 12 precincts in Randolph) is more Democratic than average for the state in all seven of the elections that I analyzed, so the guy running for the Republicans there is just setting himself up as a sacrificial lamb. But all 18 of the other senate districts where they're running have a higher Republican "floor" than average, so there are certainly some good chances among those 18 where they can win back some seats that they have lost in recent election cycles. One of their best shots at winning back a seat they lost four years ago is in the new Norfolk, Worcester, and Middlesex, districts (formerly, for the last few decades, Norfolk, Middlesex, and Bristol). State Rep. Shawn Dooley, of the 9th Norfolk house district, is running against the incumbent Democrat Senator Rebecca Rausch. That house district and that senate district were where previous Republicans Richard Ross and Scott Brown had served in the past, so Dooley is trying to follow in their footsteps, and I think he's got a very good shot at winning. Redistricting changed that senate district to make it a couple points more Republican than before. Overall, I predict that Republicans will probably win 7 senate seats this year. (Of the three incumbent Republicans, two are running unopposed this year.)

In the house, only 4 of the 55 districts Republicans are running in are too heavily Democratic for there to be any realistic chance at winning (14th Middlesex, 2nd Norfolk, 11th Suffolk, and 17th Worcester), but the other 51 districts they are trying for are winnable. They won't win all 51 of them, of course, but I think they'll win more than the 30 seats they won two years ago, perhaps about 34-36 seats. But there are 24 other seats that the GOP do not have any candidates running which are very much like the 51 potentially winnable seats they are running for. I'm referring, again, to districts that had a higher "Republican floor" than average. The state GOP certainly failed to recruit enough candidates to run for the state house, and if they had recruited as many as 24 more, then they might have been able to win 40 or more seats this year. In the last 30 years, they haven't won any more than 35.

[MarkD]

@Mark: I don’t see this being a particularly strong year for Massachusetts Republicans, and they’re all basically sacrificial lambs in any cycle, but the Brockton race probably drew a challenger because Brady is a particularly weak incumber: ethics issues, multiple DUIs, and low support within his own party. Unlike most of the Democrats I’m not sure if he’s ever run unopposed.

The district is also a bit inelastic in that it encircles Brockton in with some of the most Republican towns east of Worcester. In an election where Republicans and independents turn out but Brockton Democrats just don’t show, Republicans could have a prayer. Diehl’s also from the district, which should boost their turnout a bit. (Brockton also has a non-negligible white Hispanic population, though there wasn’t much movement there compared to the Portuguese areas further south.)

Looks like redistricting has added Randolph, though, so the Democrats should still be safe. Not sure if Brady has a primary challenger again, but he’d be ripe for one.

Yes, Brady has one opponent in the D primary: Katrina M. Huff-Larmond of Randolph. He had an opponent in the primary two years ago, but not in 2016 or 2018. And yes, given that five of the twelve precincts of Randolph were added to the district, that still ensures it will be pretty safe D.

[MarkD]

There are a few more Republicans running for the state legislature as of now than what I said previously in Reply #287 on this thread. Now the number of Republican nominees for the state senate is an even 20, half of all the seats, whereas Dems have nominees for only 38 of the 40 seats. Besides the 20 GOP nominees and the 38 Dem nominees, there are 5 other candidates running as either a minor-party nominee or an independent -- 1 in a district with both an R and a D, 1 in a district against only an R, and 3 in districts against only a D.
In the house, there are now 58 Republican nominees. 41 of them are running against a Dem, 16 of them are running w/o a Dem opponent, and 1 is running against the only incumbent Independent state rep -- Susannah Whipps. (To review her political history, ten years ago, she ran for 2nd Franklin District as a Republican, and narrowly lost by just 1.1 points. Two years later, she ran again, and easily beat the incumbent Dem by over 9 points. Two years after that, in 2016, she ran unopposed, still as a Republican. But in 2017 she announced she was leaving the GOP and becoming an Independent. In 2018 and 2020, she was reelected as an Independent against only Dem opponents; Republicans did not have anyone running against her in either race. Now she is running against a GOP opponent, but not a Dem opponent, and there's a second independent running too. Redistricting has made her district a few points more Democratic, making it a lean D district, whereas it had previously been a tilt R district.)

I still stand by my previous prediction in the gubernatorial race: I think Healey wins by 57% to 41%. Dems, of course, will sweep all of the rest of the state exec offices -- Sos, Treasurer, and Auditor (there isn't even a Republican running for Treasurer). There's no Republican running for the US House in the 4th congressional district, but certainly none of the eight Republicans who are running are going to win. And like I predicted before, I think Republicans are going to pick up 2, 3, or 4 more senate seats, and maybe 4, 5, or 6 more house seats.

[MarkD]

There are a few more Republicans running for the state legislature as of now than what I said previously in Reply #287 on this thread. Now the number of Republican nominees for the state senate is an even 20, half of all the seats, whereas Dems have nominees for only 38 of the 40 seats. Besides the 20 GOP nominees and the 38 Dem nominees, there are 5 other candidates running as either a minor-party nominee or an independent -- 1 in a district with both an R and a D, 1 in a district against only an R, and 3 in districts against only a D.
In the house, there are now 58 Republican nominees. 41 of them are running against a Dem, 16 of them are running w/o a Dem opponent, and 1 is running against the only incumbent Independent state rep -- Susannah Whipps. (To review her political history, ten years ago, she ran for 2nd Franklin District as a Republican, and narrowly lost by just 1.1 points. Two years later, she ran again, and easily beat the incumbent Dem by over 9 points. Two years after that, in 2016, she ran unopposed, still as a Republican. But in 2017 she announced she was leaving the GOP and becoming an Independent. In 2018 and 2020, she was reelected as an Independent against only Dem opponents; Republicans did not have anyone running against her in either race. Now she is running against a GOP opponent, but not a Dem opponent, and there's a second independent running too. Redistricting has made her district a few points more Democratic, making it a lean D district, whereas it had previously been a tilt R district.)

I still stand by my previous prediction in the gubernatorial race: I think Healey wins by 57% to 41%. Dems, of course, will sweep all of the rest of the state exec offices -- Sos, Treasurer, and Auditor (there isn't even a Republican running for Treasurer). There's no Republican running for the US House in the 4th congressional district, but certainly none of the eight Republicans who are running are going to win. And like I predicted before, I think Republicans are going to pick up 2, 3, or 4 more senate seats, and maybe 4, 5, or 6 more house seats.

As it happens more often than not, my predictions were terrible. Republicans did not gain ANY more seats in the state legislature than they had won in 2020 -- they held even at just 3 seats in the senate, and they have lost a few seats in the house. Even Shawn Dooley lost to incumbent Democrat senator Rebecca Rausch, and Leonard Mirra won reelection by a margin of only 10 votes.