The 10 political regions of Massachusetts

Bigger Boston: Boston, Brookline, Cam­bridge, Somerville.

The most Democratic region in the state is an outlier in several other ways. Besides being far more densely populated than the rest of the state, Bigger Boston is younger, better-educated, and more diverse than the rest of the state in terms of race, ethnicity, and family structure. It is 56 percent non-Hispanic white, the lowest figure in the state.

It may be hard to believe now, but Repub­lican statewide candidates were competitive here as late as 1990. But with Patrick winning here by more than 3-1, and even Coakley winning by more than 2-1, the only big question about Bigger Boston is how high the turnout will be, and how much of a cushion it will give Patrick.


Brink Cities: Acushnet, Berkley, Chico­pee, Dartmouth, Dighton, East Long­meadow, Fairhaven, Fall River, Free­town, Hampden, Holy­oke, Ludlow, Mon­son, New Bed­ford, Palmer, Reho­both, Seekonk, Somer­set, Spring­field, Swan­sea, Taunton, West Springfield, West­port, Wil­braham.

Whatever happens with economic indicators between now and Novem­ber, it’s safe to say that this region will still be in a lot of trouble by the time people go to the polls. It includes four of the 10 municipalities with the worst unemployment rates in 2009. The region also in­cludes Chicopee, the largest com­munity in the state where manufacturing is still the leading employment sector—and the poorest sizable community carried by Brown. (Health care is now the biggest employment sector in the state, and it recently passed manufacturing in New Bedford.) The 2000 Census found that only 17 percent of the population over 25 in this region had college degrees, or only about half the statewide average of 33 percent.

This was the most Democratic region in the state in the 1990 election, when John Silber, a social conservative and economic liberal, faced Republican Bill Weld, a pro-choice tax-cutter. It’s generally been more conservative than the rest of the state on referendum questions. (At 61 percent, the “yes” vote for weakening laws against marijuana use was lower here than in any other region.) It was almost a reverse bellwether in state politics—until it helped to put Scott Brown in office. Another recent change: Unenrolled voters now outnumber registered Demo­crats here, 45 percent to 43 percent. 


Cranberry Country: Barnstable, Bourne, Brewster, Bridgewater, Carver, Chatham, Cohasset, Dennis, Duxbury, East Bridgewater, Halifax, Hanover, Hanson, Harwich, Hing­ham, Kingston, Lakeville, Marion, Marshfield, Mash­pee, Mattapoisett, Middleborough, Norwell, Pembroke, Ply­mouth, Plympton, Raynham, Rochester, Sandwich, Scitu­ate, Wareham, West Bridgewater, Yarmouth.

Boston’s southern exburbs, which surround the state’s cranberry bogs, made up the fastest growing region in the state during the 1990s. More recently, the region has slowed down in the same fashion as the “sand states” of Arizona and Florida. It is 96 percent non-Hispanic white, higher than any other region.

It is also the most conservative region, the only one to support Healey over Patrick in 2006 and the only one to approve the abolition of the state’s income tax in 2002 (but not 2008). Adding to its anti-tax reputation is that only 18 percent of Cranberry Country’s population lives in a municipality that has adopted a local meals levy, the lowest of any region. This should be a cakewalk for the GOP in Nov­em­ber, but Cran­berry Country was independent Ross Perot’s best region in 1992 (he got 27 percent here), which suggests the possibility of Cahill doing well against the ticket of Baker and Tisei, both of whom hail from the far-off North Shore.


Down East: Amesbury, Beverly, Boxford, Danvers, Essex, Georgetown, Gloucester, Groveland, Hamilton, Haverhill, Ipswich, Lynnfield, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Marblehead, Merrimac, Middleton, Nahant, Newbury, Newburyport, North Andover, North Reading, Peabody, Reading, Rock­port, Rowley, Salem, Salisbury, Swampscott, Topsfield, Wakefield, Wenham, West Newbury.

The Down East region has a lot in common, both geographically and politically, with coastal Maine. Both areas were once known as rock-ribbed Republican, but both have been leery of the national party’s shift to the right, especially on social issues. This was Beverly resident Kerry Healey’s best region against the more conservative Jim Rappaport in the 2002 primary for lieutenant governor, with her wining by a bit more than 2-1.

Republicans have consistently polled in the mid to high 50s in competitive elections;
if favorite son Baker, a resident of Swampscott, pushes that to 60 percent, it’s bad news for Patrick.


Middle Mass.: Ashburnham, Ashby, Auburn, Barre, Black­stone, Boylston, Brimfield, Brookfield, Charlton, Clinton, Douglas, Dudley, East Brookfield, Fitchburg, Gardner, Grafton, Holden, Holland, Hub­bards­ton, Lancaster, Leicester, Leominster, Lunenburg, Mendon, Millbury, Millville, New Braintree, North Brookfield, Northbridge, Oakham, Oxford, Paxton, Princeton, Rutland, Shirley, Shrewsbury, South­bridge, Spencer, Sterling, Sturbridge, Sutton, Templeton, Townsend, Uxbridge, Wales, Warren, Webster, West Boylston, West Brookfield, Westminster, Winchendon, and Worcester.

Middle Mass. lies between the two liberal extremes in the state, the Pioneer Valley to the west and Boston to the east. It was the fastest-growing region from 2000 to 2008, according to Census estimates, with Grafton, Worcester, and Shrewsbury picking up the highest numbers of new residents.

This region gets a lot of the credit for pushing Patrick’s 2006 win into an absolute rout. Shannon O’Brien lost Middle Mass. by 15 points in 2002, but Patrick carried it by 18 points four years later. Obviously, having Tim Murray as a running mate helped here (even though primary voters, not Patrick, put him on the ticket). Still, it seems unlikely that the prospect of putting the mostly ceremonial mayor of Worcester into the mostly ceremonial post of lieutenant governor was solely responsible for giving Patrick margins of more than 20 points in Fitchburg and Gardner. Patrick has been careful to devote much of his attention to the state west of Route 128, and if he remains competitive in this region against the eastern-oriented Baker-Tisei ticket, the chances for his reelection will go up considerably.


Offramps: Ashland, Attleboro, Ayer, Bellingham, Berlin, Billerica, Bolton, Boxborough, Burlington, Chelmsford, Dover, Dunstable, Franklin, Groton, Harvard, Holliston, Hopedale, Hopkinton, Hudson, Littleton, Marlborough, Maynard, Medfield, Medway, Milford, Millis, Norfolk, North Attle­borough, Northborough, Pepperell, Plainville, South­borough, Stow, Tyngsborough, Upton, Walpole, West­borough, Westford, Wrentham.

This region mostly runs along I-495, forming a “C” around older and denser suburbs of Boston. This exurban region is still growing, with the highest birth rates of the past decade outside of major urban areas. It also added more housing units than any other region in 2009, with major new development in Billerica, North­borough, and Tyngs­bor­ough.

The political launch pad for both Paul Cellucci and Scott Brown, Offramps is usually in the running for the most Rep­ub­lican region in the state, though it is not necessarily the most conservative; in contrast to Cran­berry Country, it narrowly voted to preserve the state’s income tax in 2002. At 59 percent, this region has the highest percentage of voters registered as independent in the state. With statewide Republican registration mired in the low teens, that means any GOP nominee has to win this independent voter trove by a double-digit margin.


Ponkapoag: Abington, Avon, Braintree, Brockton, Canton, Dedham, Easton, Foxborough, Holbrook, Hull, Mansfield, Milton, Norton, Norwood, Quincy, Randolph, Rockland, Sharon, Stoughton, Westwood, Weymouth, Whitman.

Ponkapoag, named after a pond in the Blue Hills Reser­vation, consists of the older, nearer suburbs south of Boston—home to many families who moved here from South Boston and Dorchester. Culturally more conservative than the suburbs to the north or west of Boston, this was the only region in the state to vote against a ban on dog racing in 2008. Ponkapoag is also relatively tax-averse, and Brockton is the largest city in the state not to adopt a local meals tax.

If Quincy resident Tim Cahill does well anywhere, it will be in Ponkapoag, where he got 58 percent in the four-way primary for state treasurer in 2002 and 57 percent (his best showing) in that year’s general election. Should Cahill’s independent candidacy lose altitude, this will be a closely fought region between Patrick, a Milton resident, and Baker, whose party has taken this region in all of its major victories over the past 20 years.


Post-Industria: Andover, Chelsea, Dracut, Everett, Law­rence, Lowell, Lynn, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Methuen, Revere, Saugus, Stoneham, Tewksbury, Wilmington, Win­throp, Woburn.

This region, a mostly urban corridor from the edge of Boston to the New Hampshire border, is a mix of the gritty and the gentrified. It has a sizable immigrant community, and its 14 percent Hispanic population is the highest in the state. Four of the 10 communities with the highest birth rates in the state from 2000 to 2008 were in Post-Industria (Lawrence, Lynn, Lowell, and Chelsea).

Politically, it’s a closely divided region, but it doesn’t have a lot of swing; nothing seems to affect the Democratic edge in Lawrence or the Republican advantage in Wilm­ing­ton. It has a libertarian streak that befits its proximity to New Hampshire and gave the weakest support (51 percent) to the state’s mandatory seat-belt law in 1994. It was Patrick’s weakest region in the Democratic primary of 2006 and was labor favorite Tom Birming­ham’s strongest region in the Democratic primary of 2002. Patrick can afford to lose here, but not by more than a couple of points. Post-Industria’s Lowell was the biggest city in Massachu­setts carried by Scott Brown, and Patrick needs to win it back.


Shopper's World: Acton, Arlington, Bedford, Belmont, Carlisle, Concord, Framingham, Lexing­ton, Lincoln, Natick, Needham, Newton, Sherborn, Sudbury, Waltham, Water­town, Wayland, Wellesley, Weston, Winchester.

Named for one of the nation’s first shopping malls, in Framingham, this string of western suburbs is the most affluent of our 10 regions. It includes Wellesley, Lexing­ton, and Needham, the richest communities in the state with more than 25,000 people (and all of them carried by Coakley over Brown). It is also by far the most educated. As of 2000, 58 percent of adults over 25 had a college degree, a figure that is probably higher today. The figure was more than 75 percent in Carlisle, Wellesley, Sherborn, and Weston.

Shopper’s World is often the odd region out in Demo­cratic primaries; in 2002, it hit a trifecta of sorts, as gubernatorial candidate Robert Reich, lieutenant governor candidate Lois Pines, and treasurer candidate Jim Segal each won here and nowhere else. But while it’s consistently to the left of the rest of the state on social issues, it’s a little less predictable on fiscal matters and has voted in favor of tax-cutting referenda (if not for the extreme step of eliminating the income tax altogether).

The region includes five of the 10 communities with the biggest decline from Romney’s vote in 2002 to the combined votes for Healey and Mihos in 2006: Newton, Framingham, Need­ham, Wellesley, and Bel­mont. Unless he does surprisingly well in poorer urban areas, Baker needs to get a chunk of those votes back.


Vacationland: all of Berkshire, Dukes, Franklin, Hamp­shire, and Nantucket Counties; plus Agawam, Athol, Bland­ford, Chester, Eastham, Falmouth, Granville, Hardwick, Longmeadow, Montgomery, Orleans, Petersham, Phillips­ton, Provincetown, Royalston, Russell, Southwick, Tolland, Truro, Wellfleet, Westfield.

A collection of geographic extremes and resort areas, Vacationland leans to the left but also views Beacon Hill with suspicion. This is where you’ll find the occasional secessionist movement (Martha’s Vine­yard and Nantucket made noises about leaving the state after losing legislative seats in the 1970s) and self-reliance schemes (Berkshire County has its own currency, in addition to US tender: http://www.berkshares. org/). It’s also where you’ll find fewer people than you used to, and it had the lowest birth rate of any region over the past decade.

Once a Republican stronghold, Vacationland has become much more Demo­cratic in recent years, undoubtedly due to social issues (Census data suggest a large gay and lesbian population in the region) but also because western Massa­chusetts has often looked to the state for help with its sluggish economy, whether through better Internet connections or through tourist initiatives. (And at least one experiment, the state-seeded Massachu­setts Museum of Con­temporary Art in North Adams, is considered a success.)

Patrick, who maintains a sprawling second residence in the Berkshires (“Taj Deval” to critics) was extraordinarily popular here in 2006, winning 65 percent in the Demo­cratic primary and 64 percent in the general election. If the election is close, he’ll be counting not only on Boston but on some of the state’s smallest towns to put him over the top.


The Bay State's Bellwether

Is there one town that perfectly captures the Bay State political zeitgeist? There are 17 that have voted with the winner in every presidential, gubernatorial, and US Senate general election since 1990. The largest are Falmouth, Braintree, Melrose, and Wakefield. All but the first are older suburbs, not too far from Boston, near or somewhat above the state average in household income and educational attainment. But Melrose and Wakefield are both in the state senate district now represented by Richard Tisei, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, which may diminish their predictive value.

Then there is the Offramps town of Ashland, which has been on the winning side of every statewide general election and major-party primary, plus every referendum, since it prematurely voted to ban dog racing in 2000. Highly educated, relatively affluent, and almost entirely white, the town seems to lean Republican. (Patrick got 51 percent here and Brown got 54 percent.) But this fits the recent pattern in which Democrats don’t win unless they make serious inroads into the kind of territory that would be unwinnable for them in many states.

By the way, the longest winning streak as of four years ago was held by Fitchburg, but it knocked itself out of the running by voting for the loser in the 2006 Repub­lican US Senate primary by six votes (141 to 135).   —ROBERT DAVID SULLIVAN