IT’S NOT OFTEN you find the state Democratic Party, whose members control Beacon Hill, the state Republican Party, which often agitates against the majority, progressives who love to criticize the status quo, and influential labor unions all in agreement about a specific policy.
But that unusual confluence is exactly what’s happened as voters prepare to decide whether Massachusetts should reshape its system for electing candidates.
Both major parties, labor groups with significant political muscle, and groups that want to push state government to the left have all signaled opposition to a ballot question that would scrap the existing Democratic and Republican primary elections, replacing them with a single contest featuring candidates from all parties.
Proponents of the measure on the November ballot argue that an “all-party primary,” after which the top two vote-getters would face off in the general election, can counter some of the most corrosive dynamics in state politics, especially a widespread lack of competition.
Yet opponents suggest the impact would be the opposite, making it harder for first-time candidates to get a foothold and elevating the influence of moneyed interests. And different members of the “vote no” coalition all think the idea would disadvantage their own slice of the political spectrum.
“Hating jungle primaries,” as all-party primary structures are sometimes dubbed, “is maybe the most bipartisan issue in America,” said Jordan Berg Powers, the chair of the campaign committee urging voters to say “No on 3.”
Political insiders have been skeptical about the proposal since it emerged last year, and the opposition campaign formally launched earlier this month.
Early members include the Massachusetts Democratic Party, whose governing body voted in April to oppose the question, groups that lean further to the left like Progressive Mass and Act on Mass, and half a dozen unions, such as the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts chapter and 32BJ SEIU. The Massachusetts Republican Party is not officially a member of the coalition, but it “firmly opposes” the ballot question.
“This misguided initiative would undermine core democratic principles by eroding the ability of political parties to select their own nominees, marginalizing smaller parties, stifling ideological diversity, suppressing general-election turnout, and amplifying the role of big money while disadvantaging grassroots efforts,” MassGOP chair Amy Carnevale said in a statement.
Many of the skeptics agree with proponents’ assessment of Massachusetts politics: too much power is concentrated at the top and too many races go uncontested, they say, allowing lawmakers to grow complacent.
“It’s not that our current system is good. It’s that this alternate one is worse,” said Jonathan Cohn, policy director for Progressive Mass.
For supporters of changing the system, the train of logic is simple: In Massachusetts, where Democrats control more than 80 percent of state legislative seats, most elections are essentially decided in the lower-turnout primary election. So why not ensure that the general election almost always gives voters an option, even if the choice is between two people from the same party?
“The general election electorate is younger, more diverse, less wealthy, and better represents the demographics of the state,” said Jesse Littlewood, campaign manager for Yes on 3. “That’s where the decision ends up resting, which creates more competition in the sense that the largest share of voters now have a decisive vote in the election.”
Opponents, however, don’t think that funneling all candidates through a single primary ballot will actually do much to solve worst-in-the-nation competitiveness issues in a state where three in five legislative races this cycle feature a single candidate.
They argue that needing to land in the top two of a crowded primary field and then win again in November is a heavy lift that will dissuade many contenders, plus disadvantage independents and small parties who have fewer resources to command voter attention in low-turnout primaries.
Skeptics also contend a single primary election would put even more power in the hands of well-financed candidates and big donors because those with the most money could spend their to the top of a more crowded field.
“In order to have more competition, more people need to run for office, and this is giving people a longer ramp to get there,” said Scotia Hille, executive director of Act on Mass, a progressive group pushing Beacon Hill to embrace transparency and good-government reforms. With a single primary election featuring all candidates, Hille said, “you need to raise more money because you need to reach more voters.”
Steve Kerrigan, the chair of the state Democratic Party, said the proposed new system “would give more power to wealthy donors and corporate PACs, letting candidates with deep pockets or personal fortunes outpace grassroots campaigns before a single door is knocked.”
That’s another point on which proponents contend the facts show the opposite. The Yes on 3 campaign said candidates with significant fundraising advantages won races in California and Washington more frequently under prior systems with partisan primaries than they have since those states embraced all-party primaries.
Like the opposition, the constellation in support of the question cuts across partisan divides. Prominent backers include former Democratic governor Deval Patrick, former Mass. GOP chair Jennifer Nassour, and the NAACP New England Area Conference. Perhaps the most visible supporter is Danielle Allen, a Harvard University professor who briefly ran in the 2022 Democratic primary for governor.
Littlewood said he’s not surprised sitting political party leaders on both sides oppose the idea because it could reduce their power as “gatekeepers.” As for the skepticism from progressives, he finds that more “frustrating.”
“There actually often is agreement that we need more competition, and yet, for some reason, this change — they want to defend the status quo in the face of a pro-democracy change,” he said. “The question for them is: What’s so good about the status quo that they are trying to defend?”
Early polling suggests Massachusetts voters are leaning toward approving the question, but not with the cushion of overwhelming majority support that ballot campaigns often look for. A new UMass Amherst/WCVB survey of 800 registered voters found 51 percent would definitely or probably vote yes, compared to 32 percent who would definitely or probably vote no and 17 percent who are still undecided.
A handful of other states have similar systems in place for all candidates to appear on a single primary ballot. In California and Washington, the top two finishers in the primary move on to the general election. In Alaska, the top four advance.
Voters in Colorado, Arizona, Montana, and South Dakota each rejected ballot measures in 2024 that sought to adopt all-party primary systems. In at least one case, Massachusetts played a minor role: US Sen. Elizabeth Warren lent her voice to the opposition campaign in Colorado, calling that ballot question “a wolf in sheep’s clothing, completely funded by billionaires to tilt the political landscape toward their own special interests.” (Warren’s office did not respond to a CommonWealth Beacon inquiry about whether she also opposes the Massachusetts ballot question.)
For months, Democrats feared the high number of candidates from their party running for California governor, including billionaire Tom Steyer, would divide their base into small enough fractions that the two Republican candidates could snag the top two positions in the primary there. That did not happen, and Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra and Republican candidate Steve Hilton advanced to the November general election.
Critics nonetheless point to such close calls, or rare instances of one party missing the general election ballot, as cautionary tales.
“Despite its framing as a pro-democracy initiative, Question 3 limits voter choice at the ballot box and stifles competition in our elections,” said Kevin Brosseau, secretary-general of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “We only need to look to California’s recent primaries to see how this experiment forces voters to abandon their preferred candidates for the most well-funded campaigns, with a billionaire able to almost buy his way into the general election.”
California got its primary system the same way Massachusetts might: a statewide ballot question. Voters there approved a measure in 2010 that had the backing of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and influential business groups.
In the cycles since then, the all-party primary system has led to general-election contests between two Democrats or two Republicans with some regularity. Between 11 percent and 18 percent of California’s congressional and state legislative general elections since 2012 have featured a pair of candidates from the same party, according to an analysis by CalMatters.
But “lockouts” — or instances in which two candidates from one party advance while sharing less than 50 percent of the vote because too many candidates from the other party split their base — are far more rare. Littlewood said that’s only happened three times in more than 2,000 elections in California and Washington.
Fears of the “spoiler effect” cut both ways. Republicans are also worried that, in deep-blue Massachusetts, two Democrats will advance in many races, ending the GOP’s guaranteed path to contesting any general elections where it fields a candidate.
“You can have Republicans who fear that this system will lead to Republicans being shut out of the general election, Democrats who fear that it’s going to lead to Democrats being shut out of the general election, and they can both be right in different races,” Cohn said.
