Sadly, our fondest dreams have been dashed: we’ve been deprived of the opportunity to mercilessly mock the Mass. GOP for failing to get their statewide candidates on the ballot. đŸ˜‰
In other words, the Secretary of State has completed its review of signatures, and here’s who’s on the ballot for statewide offices (pending, of course, clearing the 15% threshold at the upcoming Democratic state convention):
| Office | Democrat(s) | Republican(s) |
| US Senator | Ed Markey | Brian Herr |
| Governor | Joe Avellone Don Berwick Martha Coakley Steve Grossman Juliette Kayyem |
Charlie Baker Mark Fisher |
| Lt. Gov. | James Arena-DeRosa Leland Cheung Steve Kerrigan Mike Lake |
Karyn Polito |
| Attorney General | Maura Healey Warren Tolman |
John Miller |
| Secretary of State | Bill Galvin | David D’Arcangelo |
| Treasurer | Tom Conroy Barry Finegold Deb Goldberg |
Michael Heffernan |
| Auditor | Suzanne Bump | Patricia St. Aubin |
The complete lists of Democratic and Republican primary candidates also includes everyone running for the congressional seats, and for state senator and state rep. Â Check it out – what races are you watching?
Please share widely!
Should we predict? I think everyone makes the ballot, in every race, except Avellone.
Kayyem to the list for Gov, and Arena-DeRosa for LG not making it.
Otherwise, I see everyone getting on.
I wonder how many votes the GOP SoC candidate will pull?
It’s going to be very difficult for all or even four of the Gubernatorial candidates to get on the ballot.
Heck, I’m not even sure three candidates will make it on the ballot — in fact, I’d say a third candidate would face a very uphill climb.
I think most people are in agreement that Grossman will have at least 50%+1 of the delegates walking into that convention (if not a few more percentage points) and Coakley will make the ballot. Let’s say she gets 20%, which seems like a reasonable baseline to me.
That would leave 30% of the delegates for the rest of the 3 candidates. Unless one of them has some kind of huge momentum none of us know about, it’s very conceivable that none of them will be able to slice that 30% pie into a big enough piece to make the ballot.
Even if one of them has that kind of momentum going into the convention, unless Grossman’s convention support isn’t as strong as most believe and/or Coakley isn’t going to get more than her 15%, it’s almost impossible for there to be four candidates on this ballot.
one of the leading campaigns could send some delegates at one of the trailing ones. Would having Kayem in the primary help Grossman? Would Berwick help Coakley?
I never believed it, but people said that Patrick helped Gabrieli stay in the game in 04.
I don’t think even Grossman’s people believe that.
Coakley and Grossman are both guaranteed to be on the ballot and Coakley is the heavy favorite to lead in delegate count based on everything I’ve heard. Not sure why you think Grossman will blow her out of the water on delegates though.
I don’t think even Coakley’s people believe that….
Conventional wisdom (pun intended) is that the finish will be Grossman, Coakley, Berwick, Kayyem, Avellone. All the campaigns agreed that Grossman had a lead in elected delegates at the convention, and most people think that ex-officios are going to be heavy for Grossman & Coakley.
Here’s a poll of delegates that David Bernstein reported on showing Grossman with a little over a 1/3rd of the delegates so far:
Note that this shows Berwick & Coakley essentially tied for 2nd.
Sorry for the big graph — it was reasonably sized in preview….
If Berwick essentially ties Coakley or actually beats her and comes in second, he’ll be the lead convention story — GO DON!
So, based on this poll – to answer trickle-up’s question about sending delegates.
a. Grossman wants to show he is the clear leader (and a 14 point spread will do that, but not much less than that)
b. Grossman is the non-Coakley vote right now, so why would he want to dilute the non-Coakley vote by helping another candidate.
c. Coakley definitely does not want to come in third here or Berwick will be all the talk. So while she would like to split the non-Coakley vote, coming in second is more important
So I don’t see anyone really helping Kayyem or Avellone.
Granted, this is all speculative based on whether you have any faith in this poll.
…I think all the candidates agreed that Grossman was leading the delegate count and Kayyem claimed second place. I’m not sure how the add-ons might have changed that calculus.
I certainly didn’t think Kayyem came out at number two, and I don’t recall anyone else convincingly claiming that either.
Grossman, yeah. He did A1 work.
How to we find out whether any 3rd party or independent candidates got enough signatures to get on the general election ballot?
Since Independents are filing for the general and not the primary, the deadline for them to turn in their signatures isn’t until August (http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/elepdf/Candidates-Guide-14.pdf), so we won’t know until then.
listed here (the Secretary of State noted that this list is unofficial, since it does not reflect the results of any signature challenges, etc.)
There is an Indepenent running in 34th Middlesex.
I am especially interested in the 3rd Bristol House district, where Shaunna O’Connell, a FOX news favorite, is running for re-election against an Indepedent. This race may test how well the Mass GOP is able to embrace both the relatively moderate Charlie Baker and Republicans of more extreme views.
(Carl Sciortino’s old seat)
Four Democrats running, no Republicans. I’ve been contacted by Barber and Rourke already. Nothing from the Medford based candidates though. (I live in the 7th Ward of Somerville)
Anyone know if there are candidates yet?
Mike Day of Stoneham is someone whom you should consider. Michael Bettencourt of Winchester is running as a Dem also in the primary. There is a republican opponent in the general election.
The district is Stoneham and Winchester.
Family’s in Wakefield, but I was just curious. Considering all the hype around the last two special election rounds I’m surprised we haven’t heard more about this from the candidates. More so on Carl’s race.
…but except for Baker and Polito their lineup isn’t so much a “who’s who” as a “who’s who?”:)
…the Mark Fisher issue has been resolved in his favor?
I’m not sure they’ll be voting for Big Dig Baker and Guantanamo Bay Miller.
I hope some delegates who would be normally inclined to vote for Coakley or Grossman decide to vote for some of the struggling candidates instead of just piling on to the majority! I’d like to see a good number of options on the primary ballot.
I don’t see either adding anything to the field we don’t already have with Steve, Martha, and Don. I would see their being on the ballot making it easier for Martha to win-an outcome I certainly don’t want.
The convention is comprised of three different kinds of delegates.
There are elected delegates from the caucuses, most of whom make a pledge about who’ll they’ll support for Governor. Very few of these people would or should change their votes — it would be a huge violation of trust for democrats who showed up at the caucses and voted for them.
The next batch are ex-officio. Some of these will be up for grabs, but most of these are similarly pledged in the form of endorsements, etc. Sometimes a little convention magic can be worked through these folks to get someone on the ballot — that’s how Chris Gabrieli made it on the ballot after announcing his bid after the caucuses in 06– but it’s doubtful.
The last batch are add-on delegate, which has an open process pretty late in the game. While on the surface this looks like a big group of pursuadable delegates, in reality the campaigns will all have been pushing eligible supporters to attempt to become add-ons hard…. so a lot of add-ons are going to go into that convention as hard-core supporters.
With so many candidates in, making it so difficult to accomplish what each campaign wants to do at the convention, I don’t think you’re going to see a lot of campaigns willing to ‘give up’ supporters or a lot of supporters willing to vote contrary to their pledges.
The only person we can be almost certain will have a lot of surplus voters in the first round who could act to keep people on the ballot will be Grossman – but no one could stand more to gain more from reducing this down to a two person race.
It seems extremely unlikely to me that anything could be done in this sort of competitive atmosphere to work out ways to keep people on ballot, short of those people already having their 15% walking into the convention.
I saw large blocks of delegates from machine controlled areas of Boston suddenly switch to Gabrielli in 2006 when we had them down as for Reilly via phone IDs.
Outside the vocal Democratic bastions (Dedham, Malden, etc.) what you’re describing doesn’t hold as much as you might think. Some delegates I know are going because they organized a caucus for their defunct committee…they weren’t committed to anyone. Many townie caucuses are reflections of local cleavages, and a popularity contest. I think there are many more uncommitted delegates than you may think.
As a townie delegate myself I can say that our 3 delegates were uncommitted. I got on because I was the only eligible male, the other (besides our chair) became a popularity contest. So there will at least be a few of us walking around confused who can be swayed.
but he’s still the same “Charles” that voters didn’t want the last time around.
Of course we’re still in much better shape than the Republicans:)
I am understandably curious.
We’re doing fine with statewide and our congressional delegation, but there are state legislative seats and a Governor’s Council seat with no Dem candidates. In MA I find that embarrassing.
I see real life in Doctor Don Berwick’s campaign. Our Treasurer has not delivered as clear messaging of public service as the Doctor. I eat ice cream, but do not crave a hash tag for it. #SelfiesForSteve is a hash tag that does not educate the general public of our Commonwealth’s needs. Stating #OneCommonwealth has not shared details of leadership to on-and-off non-activist voters who simply recognize the name of our Attorney General. Berwick, M.D. sure could use an opening as big as Senator Obama had clinched being keynote speaker for our Democratic National Convention 2004 (which helped secure two presidencies for our community organizer himself, but not the presidency for Kerry, who at least holds now a Cabinet post). Without a broadly televised floor appearance, however, activists nonetheless believe in Berwick as surely as we recite our Pledge of Allegiance.
The Doctor has the spine to nativize Single Payer. Thriving schools regardless of ZIP code is a call that should attract our Commonwealth’s unpaid school committee members, who are themselves activists.
Better than Orange is the red, white and blue of my Medicare card.
The Doctor is in for the right kind of healthcare for all Bay Staters.
Rejecting casinos makes Berwick a real leader. He will not flatly represent the 52% of Massachusetts adults who may support casinos when polled, but will carry the corner office in the right direction, serving our adult pocketbooks and kids’ schools, not merely our general imagery of casinos, which Hollywood has been glamorizing along with firearms.
…and here’s why.
When I clicked on your ling in the post, I got this:
Dave runs an IT technology firm, and is running on a platform of modernization, transparancy, and public records access.
(He is also the first legally disabled person to run for statewide office, and he is just a really cool and smart guy)
make the ballot for Governor. All three have convention requirements that will have their campaign grabbing every delegate they can – no one is going to play games around shifting delegates to other candidates on the first ballot.
Treasurer Grossman has worked the delegates personally and wants a convention win to boost his standings in the polls as we enter the dog days of summer.
AG Coakley wants a respectable percentage and a quick return to the campaign trail. Her focus has been fundraising (to offset one of Grossman’s strengths) and the primary election
Dr. Berwick wants the lead in the post-convention news coverage and as others have said up-post, he becomes the story if he comes in second.
I don’t see the other two making the cut.
A mid-June nominating convention is less about committed delegates and more about getting your delegates to the convention (and keeping them there if the day drags). GOTV will be the goal for Grossman, Coakley and Berwick – whose delegates are the most committed wins the day. I suspect that is Berwick’s strength going in – his delegates will attend and they will stay.
Grossman needs a first ballot victory to be the lead story, going to a second ballot makes his win less impressive and lessens the impact in the news cycle.
A second place by Berwick overshadows all other story lines (much to Steve Grossman’s frustration) but doesn’t really raise his profile with primary voters whose of end school and summer vacation plans are already their main concern.
Coakley needs a respectable percentage (to suggest she wouldn’t make the ballot is just plain silly) – 20-25%, needs to show the party activists some energy and emotion in her speech and her floor operation needs to be making friends with Kayyam and Avellone supporters who will leave the convention without a candidate.
The Kayyem supporters are passionate believers. It might take a while before they find a candidate. The Avellone supporters are… well… I don’t really know. I haven’t met any.
Coakley as brave independent insurgent running against all those “insiders” who didn’t go for her at the convention.
Coakley as outsider – really?
doesn’t mean they won’t try it.
N/t