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Political analysts predicted a blue wave in this year’s midterms, but the results have experts calling it a “blue tsunami.” Democrats won almost every congressional election, setting the stage for divided government for the remaining two years of President Trump’s second term.
The shocking blue wave flipped Senate seats for Democrats not only in purple states like North Carolina and Ohio, but also in red states like Iowa, Texas, Kansas and South Carolina. By the time Maine was called just after 1 a.m. this morning for Troy Jackson against Sen. Susan Collins, Democrats had already taken control of the Senate.
Democrats also took back the House of Representatives. As of this morning, Democrats have 10 more seats than the 218 needed for a majority, and a number of races have yet to be called. Democrats notably picked up at least three seats in Florida districts that the state’s Republican legislature had redrawn to gain an advantage.
Perhaps less surprising is that Democrats also rolled here in Massachusetts. The Associated Press called some of the state’s key elections a minute after polls closed at 8 p.m. Governor Maura Healey won a second term. Senator Ed Markey won a third (and, according to him, final) term. And the North Shore elected Dan Koh as the state’s new congressman.
Now let’s move on from voting for legislators to voting on the laws themselves. Massachusetts had nine tied questions, a record. The multi-page ballot contributed to longer lines at some polling locations last night. Here’s where the results stand this morning – and what’s next for the successful questions:
✅Question 1 to expand the Massachusetts Public Records Act to include the Legislature and the Governor’s Office, passed by a massive margin. (This morning, the “yes” vote was up from about 86% to 14%.)
✅Question 2, the culmination of a long-running effort to allow employees of the state’s public defense agency to unionize, also passed.
- Next comes a multi-step process for Public Counseling Services Committee workers to form a union, negotiate a contract with management and eventually ask the governor for additional funding.
❌Question 3 The multi-party primaries suffered the same fate as the 2020 ranked-choice voting issue, with voters opting to keep the current electoral system. Supporters of Question 3 conceded defeat shortly after 11 p.m., with a statement lambasting the state’s “political machine” for “defending the status quo.”
✅Question 4 to introduce Election Day voter registration in Massachusetts (after years of unsuccessful grassroots advocacy) was called by the Associated Press for a “yes” vote just before 2 a.m. The system, proposed in 20 other states, will allow Bay Staters to register to vote and then immediately (tentatively) vote at the polls on Election Day in state and municipal elections.
- The law takes effect January 1, 2028, meaning the state’s presidential primary in March will be the first election in which it can be implemented.
⚠️Question 5The proposal to change the state’s obscure revenue cap to make taxpayer rebates more frequent remains too close to pass, according to the Associated Press. However, the Question 5 campaign conceded defeat just before 7:45 a.m.
✅Question 6 on the way to victory, direct lawmakers to create a nature conservation fund using sales tax revenues specifically from sporting goods, recreational vehicles and golf course-related expenses.
- Experts estimate the fund could grow to about $65 million a year once fully implemented, although lawmakers still have control over how it is spent.
⚠️ Question 7, A proposal to override local zoning rules to make it easier to build single-family homes on smaller lots is stuck in a tight race. The measure is sharply divided, with 50% voting for and 50% against.
- The law would take effect 30 days after certification of the election, which Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office says will likely take place on the first Wednesday in December.
❌Question 8 was rejected by voters in a landslide, defending the state’s multibillion-dollar legal marijuana industry against an out-of-state repeal effort. Unofficial results show that about three-quarters of voters opposed the measure.
✅Question 9, efforts to repeal the 2024 gun law failed by a similarly wide margin. More than two-thirds of voters want to uphold the law.
PS— You can take a closer look at how your community voted for governor, for Senate, and on all nine ballot questions in our city-by-city results maps.
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