{"id":2248368,"date":"2024-05-20T06:07:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T10:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/massachusetts-has-highest-percentage-of-independents-despite-heavy-democratic-lean\/"},"modified":"2024-05-20T06:08:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T10:08:57","slug":"massachusetts-has-highest-percentage-of-independents-despite-heavy-democratic-lean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/massachusetts-has-highest-percentage-of-independents-despite-heavy-democratic-lean\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts boasts the highest level of independents despite a strong Democratic inclination"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmassachusetts-has-highest-percentage-of-independents-despite-heavy-democratic-lean%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2248368&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Massachusetts stands \u2062out\u200c with \u200da significant majority of independent\u2064 voters, surpassing both Democrats and\u200c Republicans\u2063 combined. The state&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hawaiis-2024-house-elections-will-see-if-voters-stick-with-centrist-wing-of-democrat-party\/\" title=\"Hawaii's 2024 House elections test voter loyalty to Democrat party's centrist wing.\">unique political landscape<\/a>, influenced by \u200c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kennedy-inspiring-a-different-kind-of-crossover-voting-movement-voters-say\/\" title=\"Voters claim Kennedy inspires unique crossover voting movement.\">semi-open primaries<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/with-automatic-voter-registration-say-hello-to-permanent-democrat-power\/\" title=\"With Automatic Voter Registration, Democrats Gain Permanent Power.\">automatic\u200b voter registration<\/a>, has\u200c led\u2062 to a surge in independent \u2063voters who now lean more left. Despite the\u2064 independent majority, Massachusetts \u200cmaintains its \u2064Democratic stronghold in \u2064legislative chambers.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Of all 50 states, one surprisingly far surpasses the others in the percentage of registered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/independents\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>independent<\/a> voters: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/massachusetts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Massachusetts<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>In Massachusetts, a typically Democratic-leaning state, 62% of all <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/voter-registration\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>registered voters<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/ivn.us\/posts\/top-10-states-where-independent-voter-numbers-dominate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>are independents<\/a> as of November 2023, outnumbering both major political parties. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 3-1 ratio; nearly 30% of voters are registered Democrats and just 9% are Republicans. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a lot of very liberal people, but the voters statewide are not as, you know, they\u2019re not lefty, lefties the way some magazines make it out to be. You can win statewide if you\u2019re a moderate Republican in Massachusetts,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/polsci.umass.edu\/people\/ray-la-raja\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Ray La Raja<\/a>, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-director of the UMass Amherst Poll, told the <em>Washington Examiner<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>So why does Massachusetts, a state that has Democratic supermajorities in both of its legislative chambers and is not a swing state, have so many independents? Semi-open primaries and newly instated automatic voter registration may be the answer. <\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/massinc.org\/author\/steve-koczela\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Steve Koczela<\/a>, president of MassINC Polling Group, automatic voter registration, which was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/massachusetts\/press-release\/massachusetts-gov-charlie-baker-signs-automatic-voter-registration-into-law\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>adopted<\/a> in 2018, registers Massachusetts residents to vote at various points of contact with the state government, notably at the Department of Motor Vehicles. There, those of age are automatically registered with an \u201cunenrolled\u201d party or independents. If people want to pick a party, they must go to a party website or in person to an office to register for their party of choice.<\/p>\n<p>The extra step creates more work that some may not be inclined to do since Massachusetts has semi-open primaries, meaning voters do not have to be registered in a specific party. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no penalty for being an independent. In fact, there\u2019s a benefit, because you can vote either primary and vice versa,\u201d La Raja said.<\/p>\n<p>Because of the shift toward AVR, Massachusetts independents are now leaning more left than they typically do. This isn\u2019t necessarily a change in independents\u2019 attitudes, more so that there are more of them now while the margins for Democratic office winners have stayed similar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt used to be essentially that Republicans almost always would win the unenrolled voters,\u201d Koczela told the <em>Washington Examiner<\/em>. \u201cBut now that there\u2019s so few people enrolled in either party, it is that there are more Democrats entering on a broad category or more Democratic-leaning voters entering that unenrolled category.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Massachusetts\u2019s Democratic nature is still present despite the independent majority. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow, Massachusetts, politically it has not moved at all to the right, you know, no decrease in Democratic sentiment,\u201d Koczela said. \u201cIn Massachusetts, it\u2019s just the mechanics of registering to vote that have caused a huge increase in unenrolled voters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Democrats hold supermajorities in both the Massachusetts House, 135-24, and the Senate, 36-4. The current governor, Maura Healey, is a Democrat, but Massachusetts has a long history of Republican governors, including former Govs. Charlie Baker and Mitt Romney, which some believe could be aided by the high numbers of independents and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masshome.com\/governors.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>state\u2019s<\/a> center-left voting history.  <\/p>\n<p>Republicans have held on to the office of the governor for most of the last three decades, even as progressives like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) proved victorious in congressional races.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are open to Republican managers and Democratic activists for Congress,\u201d David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/2023\/10\/11\/metro\/massachusetts-independent-voters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>told<\/a> the <em>Boston Globe<\/em>. \u201cUnderneath that umbrella of 60%, there\u2019s a method to the madness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, Massachusetts independents may not truly be independents at all, based on voting record, and may merely be a statistic of convenience. Still, Massachusetts may be more in the center than believed, as independents oftentimes are. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title><strong>CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do vote for a lot of Democrats, but a lot of the Democrats who we vote for here aren\u2019t super liberal. The policy that comes out of them is often quite, sort of center to center-left,\u201d Koczela said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cReading the politics of being super lefty, I think, is wrong. I think that [being center-left] has more to do with why we\u2019ve ended up with these Republican governors rather than independents. Because if it were independents, then you\u2019d have people who would be more willing to look at Republican members of Congress and we haven\u2019t had one of those decades,\u201d Koczela continued.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Massachusetts leads all states with a remarkable 62% of registered independent voters as of November 2023, outnumbering Democrats and Republicans combined. Despite its Democratic tilt, the state boasts a significant independent voter base, surpassing both major parties<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2910,"featured_media":2248369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/massachusetts-flag.jpg.optimal.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2248368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/massachusetts-flag.jpg.optimal.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2248368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2248369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2248368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2248368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2248368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}