STRIKING RESULTS FOR TEACHERS’ STRIKES
Although it’s technically illegal for public employees to strike in Massachusetts, we’ve seen a number of teachers’ strikes over the past year. Communities like Brookline, Malden, Haverhill and Woburn have seen educators walk out of the classroom to try to secure higher salaries and better working conditions.
We were wondering how voters in Massachusetts viewed this activity, so we asked the following question:
Do you support or oppose allowing public school teachers to go on strike to fight for higher wages and improved working conditions?
FINALLY – SOMETHING TRUMP AND BIDEN VOTERS AGREE ON
In the divided and partisan political environment we live in today, it’s increasingly hard to find issues that both Republicans and Democrats agree on. However, when we asked voters about amending the recently passed Millionaire’s Tax to exempt one-time millionaires, something strange happened.
Both Trump and Biden voters supported it overwhelmingly.
MA VOTERS SUPPORT RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE (AGAIN)
Despite the fact that a new $15 minimum wage just kicked into effect on January 1, voters in Massachusetts clearly support raising it even further – to $20 an hour.
Voters across the state favor that increase by a margin of 59% to 33%, lending momentum to a campaign by the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition to push lawmakers towards legislation laying out four annual minimum wage hikes that would bring the standard rate to $20 by 2027.
Do you support or oppose raising the minimum wage in MA to $20 an hour?
THE SAD LEGACY OF JIM LYONS (OR, WHAT A DIFFERENCE 4 YEARS MAKES)
In 2018, Governor Charlie Baker and the Republican Party earned 1,781,341 votes across the Commonwealth, sweeping to victory.
Just four years later, Republican Geoff Diehl managed to get less than half of those votes – 859,343 – on his way to a lopsided defeat by Governor Maura Healey.
The biggest turnaround from 2018 to 2022 was, not surprisingly, in Baker’s hometown of Swampscott, where Jay Gonzalez got 22.2% of the vote against Baker but Maura Healey received 70.6% of the vote against Diehl.
We are going to dig into these and other statewide election results data more deeply over the next few months, but here’s a quick sampling of some of the places Democrats made the biggest gains in 2022:
THE TWO MOST POPULAR POLITICIANS IN MA AREN’T POLITICIANS (ANYMORE)
In our first in a series of polls tracking the favorability of the top elected leaders in the Commonwealth, something strange happened. The two politicians with the highest net favorability in our survey aren’t actually politicians – anymore.
Charlie Baker, who left to run the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), remains the most popular politician in Massachusetts with a net +28 favorability rating (55% favorable – 27% unfavorable).
And soon-to-be former Labor Secretary and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who is leaving the Biden Administration to run the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA), comes in second at +16 net favorability (42% - 26%)
One other interesting and important point: while Senator Elizabeth Warren’s +6 net favorability lands her in the middle of the pack, she leads all the officials we tracked with a 30% “very favorable” rating. The strength of her support is impressive and has been one of the secrets to her electoral success.
TURNS OUT, RENT CONTROL IS PRETTY POPULAR
Somewhat lost in dueling media stories, Boston City Council debates and a paid advertising campaign by the real estate industry was how real voters feel about rent control.
So we decided to ask them – and the answer came back very clearly:
Voters statewide, by a wide majority, support rent control. (65% vs. 25%).
We tested this issue two ways: (1) a straight rent control referendum on the 2024 ballot, and (2) a question about some of the specifics from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s rent stabilization proposal.
As you can see, both are very popular:
If there were a question on the 2024 general election ballot that would give cities and towns the ability to institute rent control, how would you vote?
PoliticsMA is a weekly newsletter that looks at the data that drives politics in Massachusetts. It leverages proprietary survey research, social media analytics, campaign data and decades of political expertise to help you better understand what’s driving politics, policy and business in the Commonwealth. We provide a deep-dive into the pressing issues dominating local media, conduct monthly tracking of voter opinions on a wide range of issues, political organizations and elected officials, and analyze campaign data to identify important trends.
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