Massachusetts has ten statewide constitutional primaries on Tuesday’s ballot. Exactly one of them is contested.
Every Democratic statewide officeholder is running unopposed. Republicans nominated nobody at all for Secretary of the Commonwealth or Auditor, so those lines will be blank on the GOP ballot. The only statewide fight is the Republican primary for governor.
The real contests are elsewhere: the Senate primary, an open congressional seat on the North Shore, four district attorney races, and a signature-fraud scandal that nearly erased the Republican statewide ticket.
One practical note first. Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin is telling anyone still holding a mail ballot not to mail it. Hand-deliver it to a drop box or your local election office by 8 p.m. Tuesday. Postmarks do not count in a primary.
United States Senate: Markey and Moulton
Edward J. Markey, 80, of Malden, is seeking another term against Seth Moulton, 47, the congressman from the Sixth District, who gave up his House seat to run.
Markey is favored, and the public polling is consistent. A Suffolk University and Boston Globe poll released August 18 had him ahead 52 to 38. A UMass Amherst and WCVB poll in mid-August showed a similar margin, and a University of New Hampshire poll in August had him up 35.
One caution on that last number: the same UNH poll had Moulton within six points in July. We could not reconcile a 29-point swing from one pollster in a month, so treat the Suffolk and Globe figure as the cleanest single measure.
Markey holds the state Democratic convention endorsement and the backing of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who campaigned with him at IBEW Local 103 in Boston on August 29.
The race turned on technology in its final week. Asked at the August 20 debate what artificial intelligence tools he uses personally, Markey answered, “whatever is inside of my iPhone and my iPad, whatever comes up.” Moulton built his closing argument around it, with the refrain “It’s not enough.”
John Deaton of Bolton, who ran against Warren in 2024, is unopposed on the Republican ballot.
Governor: the only contested statewide primary
Governor Maura Healey has no Democratic challenger, and neither does Lieutenant Governor Kimberley Driscoll. Massachusetts nominates the two offices separately in a primary.
On the Republican side, Michael Roger Minogue of Hamilton faces Brian Shortsleeve of Barnstable.
Minogue is the former chairman and chief executive of Abiomed, the Danvers medical device company, a West Point graduate and Desert Storm infantry officer. Shortsleeve is a former MBTA administrator under Governor Baker and a Marine veteran.
The gap is wide. Minogue took 70.4 percent at the April Republican convention to Shortsleeve’s 15.5, which barely cleared the threshold to reach the ballot. Minogue has self-funded roughly $14.5 million with about $9.5 million on hand against Shortsleeve’s roughly $1 million. Minogue declined to debate before Tuesday, saying he is focused on the general election.
The race produced a lawsuit two days before the primary. Former Massachusetts Republican Party chair Jennifer Nassour, who volunteers as a finance co-chair for Minogue, sued the Shortsleeve campaign and a staffer in Wrentham District Court under the Massachusetts Wiretap Act, which requires all-party consent, alleging he secretly recorded her on a Zoom caucus in February and that the campaign published selectively edited excerpts. Shortsleeve’s campaign called it “a sad, desperate, last-minute stunt.” The Minogue campaign says it is not involved.
The signature-fraud cluster that reshaped the Republican ballot
This is the most consequential election-law story of the cycle, and it is largely uncovered.
A single paid signature gatherer, the chairman of the Weymouth Republican Town Committee, collected for three statewide Republican candidates. All three were engulfed in allegations that names had been forged from a party voter database.
Michael C. Walsh, the candidate for Attorney General, was removed from the ballot by the State Ballot Law Commission in June after roughly 1,000 of his signatures were invalidated and a forensic document examiner testified to indications of fraud. On July 10 an Essex Superior Court judge reinstated him, holding in a fourteen-page ruling that the Commission lacked jurisdiction because the Democratic Party had failed to serve its objection by certified mail. The judge noted in the same ruling that there was “substantial evidence in the record of voter fraud.” An SJC justice upheld the reinstatement on July 13 on the same procedural ground.
The fraud allegations were never decided on the merits. Attorney General Andrea Campbell publicly asked Walsh to withdraw on August 11. He refused, saying “I regret to report: I remain a candidate.” He appears on Tuesday’s ballot, unopposed.
Two others did not survive. Anne Manning Martin was kept off the ballot by a Superior Court judge, and Anne Brensley, who won the convention endorsement for Lieutenant Governor with 56 percent, fell short of the 10,000 signature requirement amid forgery concerns raised by officials in Scituate, Hanover, and Rockland. Both are now running write-in campaigns, Manning Martin for Lieutenant Governor and Brensley for Secretary of the Commonwealth, the office where no Republican appears in print at all.
The cases have driven a legislative push to reform ballot access rules around paid signature gathering.
Congress: six of nine Democratic primaries are contested
That is a striking number. In 2024, not a single Massachusetts House incumbent drew a primary challenger.
The Sixth District is the biggest House story, an open seat Moulton vacated, with six Democrats running and no clear favorite. There is no public polling, and in a six-way field a candidate could win with roughly 17 percent.
- Dan Koh of Andover, a former Biden White House aide and Labor Department chief of staff who was chief of staff to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. He lost the 2018 Third District primary by about 145 votes. Roughly $4.7 million raised.
- John A. Beccia III of Lynnfield, an attorney and fintech executive who co-founded FS Vector. About $4.5 million raised, roughly $3 million of it self-funded.
- Tram T. Nguyen of Andover, a state representative since 2019 and legal aid attorney, a Vietnamese immigrant raised in public housing. She would be the first Asian American member of Congress from Massachusetts.
- Mariah L. Lancaster of Salem, a veterinarian and former State Department foreign affairs officer.
- Jamie Belsito of Topsfield, a town moderator and former state representative who founded the Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance.
- Bethany Andres-Beck of Middleton, a working software engineer running on artificial intelligence regulation.
Money favors Koh and Beccia. Late endorsements favor Nguyen, who closed with Attorney General Campbell, Representatives Pressley and Trahan, the Boston Globe editorial board, and several unions. Koh carries endorsements from Biden, Harris, and Buttigieg.
Outside spending is the controversy. A super PAC spent more than $385,000 supporting Koh, its largest donor being DraftKings at $250,000, which Beccia has tied to Koh’s fantasy sports regulatory work in the Walsh administration. Artificial intelligence industry super PACs added more than $500,000 for Koh. Accusations of “red boxing,” the practice of publicly signposting instructions to allied super PACs, have been leveled at both Koh and Nguyen. Nguyen transferred $190,000 from her state account to a super PAC shortly before launching.
The most viable challenge to an incumbent is in the Eighth District, covering South Boston, Dorchester, Hyde Park, and parts south. Patrick Roath, a Jamaica Plain attorney, former aide to Governor Deval Patrick, and former board chair of Common Cause Massachusetts, has raised $1.1 million with a median donation of $25 and holds endorsements from Patrick, the Boston Teachers Union, and AFT Massachusetts. His central attack is that Stephen Lynch was the only member of the Massachusetts delegation to vote for the Laken Riley Act. Lynch remains favored.
The other challenges are underfunded. Jeromie Whalen has raised about $335,000 against Richard Neal’s $3 million in the First District, where Neal is the ranking Democrat on Ways and Means. Jason Poulos has about $41,000 against Jake Auchincloss in the Fourth. Katherine Clark’s two challengers in the Fifth are splitting the anti-incumbent vote. Craig Swallow has about $33,000 against Bill Keating in the Ninth. Incumbents are favored in all of them.
No Republican primary in any congressional district is contested.
District attorney: four of eleven contested, and two open seats
These races are where a primary most often decides an office outright, because Republicans did not field a candidate in nine of the eleven districts.
Suffolk is the highest-interest race in the state, with incumbent Kevin Hayden facing former district attorney and former U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins and attorney Linda Champion. We cover that race in detail in our Suffolk County ballot guide.
Norfolk is an open seat with seven Democrats, the largest field of the cycle. District Attorney Michael Morrissey announced in January that he would not seek reelection, citing the Karen Read and Sandra Birchmore cases. The candidates are Jim Barakat of Braintree, a public defender; Gregory P. Connor of Milton, a sitting Norfolk assistant district attorney who prosecuted the Brian Walshe murder case and the only insider in the field; Adam W. Deitch of Quincy, a former federal prosecutor endorsed by members of Sandra Birchmore’s family; Robert Louis Jubinville of Milton, a sitting Governor’s Councillor who gave up that seat to run; and Macy Lee of Milton, Craig J. MacLellan of Cohasset, and Djuna Elizabeth Perkins of Dedham, all former Suffolk assistant district attorneys. No Republican filed.
Middlesex pits longtime incumbent Marian T. Ryan against David Marc Solet of Cambridge. The race has been driven by an alleged cover-up of a 2023 drunk driving homicide involving one of Ryan’s senior State Police investigators. Ryan also drew fire from a police union for pledging to refuse police endorsements and money.
Cape and Islands has incumbent Robert Joseph Galibois facing Michael Giardino, a prosecutor in the Plymouth district attorney’s office. Both are from Barnstable.
Bristol is the rare district attorney seat that will actually be decided in November. Thomas Quinn III is retiring, and both Christopher Matthew Markey, a state representative from Dartmouth, and Republican Seth Thomas Aitken of Swansea are unopposed in their primaries.
In Plymouth, no Democrat filed at all, leaving incumbent Republican Timothy J. Cruz unopposed.
There is no public polling in any district attorney race in Massachusetts, so nobody can responsibly name a favorite in Suffolk, Norfolk, Middlesex, or Cape and Islands.
Sheriff: one race in the entire state
Franklin County is the only sheriff’s race on the 2026 ballot, listed as a vacancy following the retirement of Sheriff Christopher Donelan. Lori M. Streeter of Greenfield, whom Governor Healey appointed interim sheriff, is the only candidate in either primary. She has worked in the office since 1985, starting as a correction officer, and now leads roughly 250 employees.
Her unopposed primary does not settle it. Two independent candidates, Jon Hall and Gary Gagnon, will appear on the November ballot.
No other county has a sheriff’s race this year. Massachusetts sheriffs serve six-year terms and most next run in 2028.
The other statewide offices
Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin is seeking a record ninth term with no primary challenger and no Republican opponent at all, a change from 2018 and 2022 when he faced primary fights. Auditor Diana DiZoglio is likewise the only candidate from either party, running on continuing her fight to audit the Legislature. Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg are unopposed in the Democratic primary.
Turnout
Galvin projects roughly 800,000 Democratic and 280,000 Republican ballots. More than 468,000 early votes had been cast as of August 27, about 9 percent of registered voters, running ahead of 2022 in both parties.
Fewer than one in ten legislative seats are open this cycle, and only about 14 percent of incumbents drew a primary challenger at all.
Common questions
Which statewide races are contested in the Massachusetts primary?
Only one: the Republican primary for governor, between Michael Minogue and Brian Shortsleeve. Every Democratic statewide officeholder is unopposed, and Republicans nominated nobody for Secretary of the Commonwealth or Auditor.
Who is favored in the Markey and Moulton Senate primary?
Markey. A Suffolk University and Boston Globe poll on August 18 had him ahead 52 to 38, and other August polling showed similar or larger margins.
Is the Suffolk County sheriff on the ballot?
No. Franklin County is the only sheriff’s race in the state this year. Massachusetts sheriffs serve six-year terms, and most next run in 2028.
Why is a Republican Attorney General candidate on the ballot after a fraud finding?
The State Ballot Law Commission removed Michael Walsh over roughly 1,000 invalidated signatures, but a Superior Court judge reinstated him because the objecting party failed to serve its objection by certified mail. The fraud allegations were never decided on the merits.
Can I still mail my ballot?
No. Galvin is advising voters to hand-deliver mail ballots to a drop box or election office. Ballots must be received by 8 p.m. Tuesday, and postmarks do not count in a primary.
Candidate names and contested-race determinations come from the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s official certified 2026 state primary lists. Polling, endorsement, and fundraising details come from Suffolk University and the Boston Globe, UMass Amherst and WCVB, GBH, WBUR, MassLive, CommonWealth Beacon, and the Boston Herald. Confirm your ballot at VoteInMA.com. General information, not legal advice.