VOTING TRENDS THAT showed shifts in heavily Hispanic communities in Massachusetts toward President Trump in this month’s election are also apparent in other urban areas, including huge swaths of Boston, results that seem to defy expectations that four years of often racially-charged rhetoric from the president would further depress his already weak standing in communities […]
News Analysis
Posted inPolitics
Baker really is a RINO
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER’S status was sealed last night: He is now an officially certified leading figure among the ever-shrinking ranks of major elected Republican officials who question the sanity of their party. It came when CNN’s Don Lemon, whose nightly show has been part of the cable network’s four-year monologue on the destruction being wrought […]
Posted inNews Analysis
What does early-vote surge mean for ‘Election Day’?
WE’RE GOING TO have to come up with a better phrase than “Election Day,” given how many Americans have already voted this year. As of Monday, over 95 million votes have already been cast, with another 31 million mail ballots requested but not yet returned. Over two-thirds of the total number of votes cast in […]
Posted inPolitics
In 4th Congressional District, echo of another race for a Kennedy seat
IT’S A CROWDED Democratic primary field for a rare open congressional seat in Massachusetts, one being vacated by a son of the state’s most storied political family. While that fairly describes the scramble that is on for the House seat Joe Kennedy is giving up to run for US Senate, it was also the template […]
Posted inEducation
Parents take stock of the school year that was (or wasn’t)
SCHOOL’S OUT FOR the summer. Is school out forever? Parents hope not, describing very mixed experiences with the remote learning experience that began in March. The MassINC Polling Group recently surveyed 1,502 parents statewide and found there was no single story that describes what parents went through from mid-March to June, but rather thousands of […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Parents divided over the coming school year
PARENTS ACROSS MASSACHUSETTS are sharply divided along racial lines on how they want the next school year to unfold and whether schools have the ability to operate safely, according to a new poll by the MassINC Polling Group. The questions on reopening were part of a larger statewide survey sponsored by The Barr Foundation and […]
Posted inNews Analysis
24% of Mass. residents facing food insecurity
NEARLY A QUARTER of Massachusetts residents (24 percent) say they have either struggled to provide enough food for their family or have gotten food from a food bank since the coronavirus crisis began, according to a new poll released this week by the MassINC Polling Group. These measures of food insecurity are more common among […]
Posted inNews Analysis
A new housing crisis for Massachusetts?
FACED WITH COMPOUNDING economic challenges, many renters in Massachusetts are struggling to keep up with monthly rent payments, raising the specter of a spike in evictions when the moratorium expires in August. Between April and June, 29 percent of those surveyed in a recent poll were unable to pay at least part of their rent […]
Posted inNews Analysis
The man in the middle
THERE’S NOTHING IN the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos, rabble-rousing Texas politico Jim Hightower famously averred. Add to that popular Massachusetts governors. Gov. Charlie Baker, who parlayed a penchant for cautious incrementalism into a successful first term and reelection, wasn’t about to throw out that playbook when a global pandemic […]
Posted inEconomy
Psychological, economic toll piling up
A PERFECT STORM of economic, social, and political crises brought on by coronavirus are battering Massachusetts residents. The economic devastation is spreading, with 20 percent reporting losing a job since the crisis began, and a third of those still employed losing a portion of their paycheck. The worst of the damage is among those with the […]