For the most part, Democrats and Republicans in Massachusetts look ready to vote in lockstep with their party leadership on the suite of nine ballot questions heading their way. But there are two major exceptions: Republicans don’t have much interest in repealing a 2024 gun law and Democrats seem ready to force Beacon Hill’s Democratic leadership to comply with the state public records law.
In a new survey for CommonWealth Beacon conducted by the MassINC Polling Group (toplines | crosstabs), 55 percent of Republicans and those that lean Republican said they would vote yes on Question 9, which would keep the 2024 gun law in place, despite the party urging its members to vote no. Just 27 percent of the Republican likely voters said they would toss the law.
The sweeping gun law cracked down on ghost guns and broadened the definition of assault weapons, among other changes.
Support for retaining the law from the right seems stronger in the new MassINC Polling Group poll than a mid-August UMass Amherst/WCVB poll of registered voters, which found 49 percent of Republicans would vote to uphold it.
More than 80 percent of Democratic voters and leaners said they would vote to keep the law, as did about 60 percent of independents.
Though the Massachusetts Republican Party’s ballot guide recommending a no vote labels the question “Firearm Over Regulation,” the party’s position doesn’t “seem to have had as much of an impact as you might think,” said MassINC Polling Group president Steve Koczela. The takeaway, he said: “Party platforms don’t always represent the will of the voters.”
More Context
- Transparency fight escalates as House votes to limit its exposure to audit, public records requests (June 2026)
Published by MassINC