Massachusetts is the best-educated state in the country and the highest-earning — first of fifty in the share of adults holding a bachelor’s degree, at 47.3 percent, and first in median household income, at $103,960 against a U.S. figure of $80,734. It has voted Democratic for president in ten straight elections, by 25.2 points in 2024. But it was not always a sure thing: the state went Republican in 1980 and again in 1984, when Ronald Reagan carried it by 2.8 points, and gave Michael Dukakis — its own governor — only a 7.9-point margin in 1988. The Democratic hold is a generation old, not a birthright.
And even here the ground moved. The Democratic margin fell eight points from 2020 to 2024, from 33.2 to 25.2 — the same shift toward Donald Trump that ran through the Northeast. The slip was not evenly spread. Boston’s Suffolk County still voted Democratic by 52.1 points, but that was down from 62.8 in 2020; the move opened furthest in the southeast, where Bristol County — New Bedford and Fall River — fell from D+11.9 in 2020 to D+1.3 in 2024, the closest county in the state, and neighboring Plymouth held by only 8.8. The college corridor barely flinched.
That corridor is the Democratic floor. Suffolk and Dukes — Martha’s Vineyard — each cleared 52 points, and the university counties west of Boston ran nearly as wide: Hampshire, around Amherst and Smith, at 41.7, Middlesex, holding Cambridge, at 39.2, and Berkshire at 39.7. Underneath sits a secular, Catholic-rooted state — second of fifty in Catholic adherence at 35.5 percent, yet 51 percent claiming no religion. In 2026 Governor Maura Healey seeks a second term and Senator Ed Markey a third, both rated safe Democratic, with Markey facing a primary challenge from Representative Seth Moulton on September 1.
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