Massachusetts voters will have familiar names on their Presidential primary ballots, on March 3rd. If they take a Democratic ballot, they’ll see their U.S. Senator, Elizabeth Warren, and former governor, Deval Patrick. If they vote in the Republican primary, former governor William Weld’s name will appear as a challenger to Donald Trump.
Those marquee figures of Bay State politics give added cache to the proceedings, which are part of the so-called Super Tuesday vote-o-rama.
This time around, Massachusetts joins 13 other states with primaries that day. They include huge delegate prizes in California and Texas, and key states such as Colorado and Virginia.
Those states will get more national attention. But, the Commonwealth’s primaries are shaping up to be fascinating in their own right.
Warren, currently among the front runners, will feel pressure to win big in her home state. In the 50 years since the modern Presidential primary system emerged, every major candidate from Massachusetts has received more than 50 percent of the primary vote, along with the lion’s share of pledged delegates.
Patrick, if he has clawed his way to competitiveness by then, will need Massachusetts to give him momentum forward.
Weld’s plan to unmask GOP voter resistance to Trump rests largely on New England moderates like himself. Plus, his showing in the state will be seen as a barometer of Charlie Baker’s success in maintaining a non-Trumpian side of the Massachusetts Republican Party.
It could turn out to be a very interesting primary. And believe it or not, it’s less than 100 days away.
Warren’s task
The most recent public poll, from MassINC in mid-October, showed Warren leading, but not dominating, the primary contest in Massachusetts. She was the top choice of 33 percent, followed by Biden at 18 percent and Sanders at 13 percent.
That’s a sharp improvement for her over polls earlier in the year—tracking Warren’s rise nationally.
But it’s still far below the 51 percent won by Mitt Romney in the 2008 Massachusetts Republican primary, the worst showing to date of any major home-state candidate. Romney did not win the nomination that year.
Matching the margins of Romney in 2012, Michael Dukakis in 1988, or John Kerry in 2004—all on their way to winning the nomination—won’t be an easy task for the Commonwealth’s senior Senator. The path to a big home-state was already complicated, before Patrick’s late entrance added to the problem.
It’s not merely a matter of pride. Massachusetts is the fifth biggest delegate prize of what will likely be the most important day of the nomination process.
Super Tuesday this year will come just three days after South Carolina’s primary, the last of the four early contests. Nearly a third of all delegates will be awarded that day. There is a good chance that the field will still be in flux that morning, but well defined by that evening.
Warren’s national brand, her relatively strong fundraising position, and her extensive organizing staff should have her ready to compete in so many places, so quickly, if she remains competitive after the early contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.
But, depending on who else remains in the hunt, her competitors might be in even better position. Plus, some of the other Super Tuesday states have their own potential home-field candidates: Kamala Harris in California, Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota, and Julian Castro in Texas. Several others are in the South, where Warren is trying to gain acceptance.
So, a big win in Massachusetts would help Warren register a big, momentum-building day—along with a good chunk of the pledged delegates she’ll need for the nomination.
And she’s not taking it for granted. Aside from her campaign headquarters in Charlestown, Warren has opened field offices in Cambridge and Northampton, with a staff led by state director Jossie Valentin and state organizing director Zack Mooney. That puts her ahead of other candidates in organizing in the state.
That doesn’t mean they haven’t made inroads, however.
Split support
Bernie Sanders retains a large base of support in Massachusetts, where he won nearly half the 2016 primary vote and continues to raise plenty of money.
That support comes from stereotypical progressive strongholds such as Somerville, but also in working class towns such as Quincy, Methuen, and Saugus, where he did well against Hillary Clinton four years ago.
Those are also fertile ground for Joe Biden, who has always had a connection with the area’s working class Catholic Democrats in particular.
Biden has already received the endorsement of Congressman Stephen Lynch.
Boston mayor Marty Walsh and Congressman—and former Presidential candidate—Seth Moulton are believed to be supportive of the former Vice President as well.
Pete Buttigieg, who has recently risen in national and New Hampshire polls, has likely climbed to double-digit backing in Massachusetts by now as well. He has raised a lot of money in greater Boston, with well-attended events that suggest a strong network of support among young professionals and the LGBTQ community.
Then, of course, there is the Patrick wild card. He might be a forgotten asterisk by March 3rd; but if he’s made any headway at all in his late, long-shot bid, his fans from Martha’s Vineyard to the Berkshires could be easily swayed to give him their votes.
On the other hand, if anyone thought Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley might tone down her support for Warren in light of Patrick’s entry, they were proven wrong this past week. Pressley traveled to Georgia with Warren as a surrogate during the Atlanta debate, and a speaker at a Thursday campaign event.
Still, Patrick or any other lower-polling candidates who begin to gain traction in the key first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire, will receive a big boost of attention in Massachusetts, where that contest is covered as a local event.
Plus, Bay Staters will be flooded, as usual, with candidate advertising running on Massachusetts television and radio, because of the overlapping audience in the Granite State to the north.
Unlike other Super Tuesday states, such as Colorado, North Carolina, or Texas, Massachusetts will be on the receiving end of those messages long before March.
That could help other candidates catch up with Warren’s familiarity in Massachusetts.
Although competitive in fundraising, Warren’s campaign has invested more of its funds into early staffing, and has not begun airing ads for New Hampshire yet. Sanders began airing ads in Massachusetts for the first time earlier this month, according to tracking at fivethirtyeight.com.
Tom Steyer, one of two self-funding billionaires you’ll be seeing a lot of during commercial breaks, has already spent more than $2 million on TV ads in the Commonwealth since entering the Presidential race. The other, Michael Bloomberg, is not competing in New Hampshire; he nevertheless included Boston stations in his torrent of ad buys across the country this week.
Although Biden’s campaign is running low on funds, he will be the beneficiary of New Hampshire-directed advertising from a Super PAC, organized by Boston’s Larry Rasky. Other candidates, including those who decry the outside spending, could get similar help.
Warren, bane of the wealthy and loud critic of Super PACs, is one of the least likely to get such help.
In fact, it is likely that some political committees unaligned with any candidate will spend money just trying to hurt Warren’s chances in the New Hampshire primary. Such anti-Warren ads could erode her support on the Massachusetts side of the border as well.
More may be merrier
While winning her home state is necessary to avoid a potentially crushing embarrassment, what would really matter to Warren is taking a large share of the delegates awarded in Massachusetts that day.
Because of how those delegates are awarded, Warren might end up benefiting from a large, split field—or not, depending on how a few percentage points happen to fall.
Massachusetts will award 114 pledged delegates, some based on the candidates’ proportion of the state-wide primary vote, and others similarly calculated by the vote within each of the state’s nine congressional districts.
That means 10 separate, small pots of votes. Normally, if those each get divvied up several ways, no candidate can pile up much of an advantage.
For instance in 1976, Washington Senator Scoop Jackson won the Massachusetts primary, and Jimmy Carter finished fourth. But Jackson earned 30 delegates, and Carter took 16—a mere 14-delegate edge well outweighed by Carter’s gains elsewhere.
Importantly, however, a candidate must earn at least 15 percent to be eligible for any of a given pot’s delegates. That is, a candidate who gets only 14 percent statewide might be able to pick up a delegate or two in individual districts where he or she topped the 15 percent threshold, but that’s all.
If you can manage to be the only candidate who tops the threshold, statewide and in most districts, you can really clean up. Paul Tsongas did it in 1992, when he won 66 percent of the statewide vote, and the other candidates—primarily Jerry Brown and Bill Clinton—all failed to reach 15 percent.
That’s tough to do, even for a home-state candidate, in a field that has narrowed to just two or three leading candidates. Carter got 28 percent in Massachusetts against Ted Kennedy in 1980. Jesse Jackson managed 18 percent against Michael Dukakis in 1988, as did Howard Dean against John Kerry in 2004.
It might actually help Warren, then, if several candidates dig into her support in the state. It might make it harder for her to reach that symbolic 50 percent mark, but could make it harder for anyone else to reach 15 percent, statewide or in individual districts. That could turn a symbolic win for a big delegate windfall.
Who knows, perhaps Deval Patrick’s late arrival, as irritating as it may be to the Warren camp, could end up taking 10 or 12 percent of the Massachusetts vote, and by doing so prevent others from reaching the 15 percent threshold. Or, who knows, perhaps fortunes will reverse, and Warren will be the one doing the same unintentional favor for Patrick.
