Quote Originally Posted by Bostondevil View Post
Among new voter registrations, women outnumber men, by a lot. Women and their feelings about access to abortion will decide most races this time around. It's on every single ballot whether the candidates want it to be or not.


OK, local evidence that yard signs have absolutely nothing to do with outcome. I know, I know, I have criticized the unscientific use of yards signs as a measure of prevailing sentiment. I only bring it up because the signs are very lopsided, for a candidate that has absolutely no shot of winning. I have not seen a single, not one, yard sign for Maura Healey in the upcoming Massachusetts governor's race. I have seen multiple yard signs for Geoff Diehl. He'll get votes but he'll be lucky to break 30%.

The Republican party in Massachusetts is in absolute disarray and I find it very disheartening. Democrats in Massachusetts need a check and Republicans are not going to nominate anyone that can win statewide for a long time unless they change direction. Despite being a deep blue state, the people of Massachusetts have a healthy history of electing fiscally conservative Republicans as governor, but if you want to win statewide here, you have to at least lean left on most social issues. Those types of Republicans used to exist here as recently as Charlie Baker's last campaign, but Governor Baker is the last one left. There are less than 500,000 registered Republicans in Massachusetts, only about 10% of registered voters (~30% registered Dem and ~60% registered Ind) and just under 7% of the whole population. Primary turnout this year was low with only ~275,000 casting votes in the Republican primary.
Thank you for bringing this up. I know we aren't supposed to get into endorsing candidates and our allegiances but I bet that a lot of people here would be supportive of a candidate exactly like the one you described. I have always found the moderate members of the opposition party who manage to win in a state that largely votes the other way to be fascinating and a great demonstration of how government is supposed to work.

As you noted, unfortunately they are becoming dinosaurs. There are a number of reasons for this. The primary system certainly does not help. The importance of achieving majorities in the senate and house at the national level also has an impact. A lot of people have raced to the extremes but there still are a number of people in the middle.

I wish I had a solution for this but I can't think of one, and to make one work, it would likely require some type of consensus which is not going to happen.