MASSACHUSETTS VOTERS ARE on track to have a record-smashing, likely overwhelming number of choices to make this fall that could reshape the state. They’ll need to decide whether to walk back a landmark gun control law, slash taxes over the objections of Beacon Hill, reverse a 1994 electorate decision to ban rent control, and much more.
When it comes to the elected officials responsible for writing the laws in the first place, though, most Bay Staters will once again have no options at all.
Three out of every five state legislative races will be completely uncontested this fall, in each case allowing a single candidate — almost always the incumbent — to amble into another two-year term without needing to expend any energy on campaigning or explain their positions on issues facing the state. If constituents don’t like that, well, they can blank their ballot or write in another name in silent, ineffectual protest.
Public sentiment about Beacon Hill has been increasingly marbled with negativity.The historic boom in ballot questions — as many as 11 could go before voters, surpassing the record of nine set in 1994 — in many ways reflects dissatisfaction, with many proposals seeking to circumvent legislative inertia and one targeting lawmakers themselves by looking to force access to their records.
Yet the trend that’s been building over the past few years did not extend to any meaningful change in legislative contests.
All 160 House seats and all 40 Senate seats are up for reelection every two years, and all candidates running needed to submit certified nomination papers by the end of the day Tuesday. In most of those districts — 92 in the House, and 25 in the Senate — only a single person qualified for the ballot, according to preliminary information released by Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office.
Taken together, about 59 percent of the legislative districts feature no competition. Even some of those with contests will have nominal stakes because the only challengers are either independent candidates not running under a party banner or members of third parties, who almost never succeed at toppling Democrats or Republicans.
It’s par for the course for Massachusetts, which, despite its claims to be the bastion of a well-engaged democracy, has for years hosted the least competitive state elections in the nation. In 2024, 66 percent of House and Senate seats had no competition; two years before that, about 54 percent of candidates cruised through without facing any opponents.
Some challengers are sure to position their individual contests as referenda on the course legislative leaders have charted, but the lawmakers most responsible for Beacon Hill’s actions and inactions will for the most part face few electoral consequences.
House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka are both unopposed once again. Mariano last faced a challenger in 2020, a month and a half before he assumed the speakership; Spilka has not had a single opponent since 2010, unless you count her failed bid for Congress in 2013.
Only two of the Democrats in Mariano’s leadership circle have any contests this cycle: Second Assistant Majority Leader Paul Donato of Medford, who is challenged by Republican candidate James Seibel, and fourth division chair James O’Day of West Boylston, who will need to fend off a primary challenge from Barur Rajeshkumar.
The Senate side is at least a little bit more competitive. Sen. Michael Rodrigues, the Ways and Means Committee chair and right hand to Spilka, drew opposition from Republicans Manny Silva and Gabriel Boomer Amaral in an ostensibly purple district. Senate President Pro Tempore Will Brownsberger has a Democratic primary contest against Daniel Lander, an aide to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, amid recent clashes between the mayor and Senate leadership. And Sen. Michael Rush, the chamber’s majority whip, faces a primary of his own against Persis Yu.
The state Republican Party is not making a wide-reaching bid to topple the Democratic supermajority that’s persisted in both chambers for decades. GOP candidates are challenging in only 46 House races and 11 Senate races, a bit more than a quarter of the full field.
Republicans are also leaving two statewide offices — secretary of state and auditor — uncontested, which party chair Amy Carnevale described as a strategic choice due to “finite resources” in a state where Democrats dominate.
With so few options available to voters, those who want to send a disgruntled signal to their lawmakers will need to turn to other mechanisms. Frustration will likely be a driving force in the campaign for a ballot question that would subject both the Legislature and governor’s office to the state’s public records law. That proposal is led by the anti-establishment crusading state auditor, Diana DiZoglio, who is still waging a legal battle to probe the House and Senate as voters endorsed two years ago.
Between that question and the others that voters will decide, big changes could be coming to Beacon Hill this fall. But it won’t be through legislative elections.
