Democrats Sweep Massachusetts

Democrats won the governorship, all 10 House seats, and all statewide races in Massachusetts.

November 3, 2010

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Providing further proof, if any is needed, that Massachusetts is the anti-Alabama, Tom Levenson recaps yesterday’s election results in his home state:

Governor—check (Go Deval!)

All 10 House seats—check (yay Barney!)

All statewide races—check (err, two cheers for Martha Coakley?) (No, I guess I haven’t forgiven her for running the worst campaign in civilized history last Jan.)

Voted to retain our recent sales tax hike

Voted to retain the state’s primary law encouraging the construction of affordable housing

Voted to abolish the state’s sales tax on liquor…which I opposed, but have to admit makes a whole lot of sense in the wake of the results last night.

As noted earlier, Republicans swept Alabama, save for the gerrymandered “majority minority” 7th CDD.

2 responses to “Democrats Sweep Massachusetts”

Tano

November 3, 2010 at 11:39 am

Mass is the 6th most prosperous state in the country. Alabama the 46th. You ever wonder why?
James Joyner

November 3, 2010 at 11:57 am

Part of it’s cost of living, inflating the differences in household income. Part of it’s that there two-income households have been more common in the former than the latter for some time. Part of it’s the legacy of agrarian economies, with Alabama having been an agricultural and mining state much later in its evolution.

A large part of it’s demographic, with Alabama having four times the black population and all that entails. The legacy of Jim Crow, of course, doesn’t help.

But Massachusetts also has a huge advantage in college education rates. Much of that is part of the aforementioned legacies — farm kids didn’t need college and blacks weren’t permitted college — and part of it’s clustering. Massachusetts is much more densely packed and had established some great universities before Alabama — indeed, the United States — came into existence.