Suffolk County voters decide one office outright on Tuesday. The District Attorney’s race has three Democrats and no Republican filed, which means the September 1 primary is the election. Whoever wins prosecutes every criminal case in Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop for the next four years.
Here is everything on your ballot, and which races are actually contested.
One urgent note before the races. Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin is telling voters who still hold a mail ballot not to mail it. Hand-deliver it to your local election office or an official drop box. It must be received by 8 p.m. Tuesday, postmarks do not count, and it cannot be returned at a polling place.
Suffolk County District Attorney
Three Democrats. No Republican. The winner takes office in January.
Kevin R. Hayden, of Roslindale, is the incumbent. Governor Baker appointed him in January 2022 to fill the vacancy left when Rachael Rollins became U.S. Attorney, and he won a full term that November. He has more than thirty years in criminal law and previously chaired the Sex Offender Registry Board.
Rachael Rollins, of Roxbury, held the office from 2019 to January 2022 and then served as U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts until May 2023. She is nationally known for her 2018 list of fifteen low-level offenses her office would decline to prosecute.
Linda G. Champion, of Hyde Park, is senior legal counsel at Murphy, Hesse, Toomey and Lehane and a former Suffolk assistant district attorney who served on Hayden’s leadership team. She ran for the office in 2018 and lost to Rollins.
Each of the two front-runners carries a formal ethics finding
This is the frame of the race, and both findings are matters of record rather than campaign allegations.
Rollins resigned as U.S. Attorney in May 2023 after two federal investigations, by the Justice Department’s Inspector General and the Office of Special Counsel, concluded she had improperly engaged in political activity, including attending a Democratic fundraiser and disclosing information to influence the 2022 race to succeed her. In 2025 the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers publicly reprimanded her for disclosing confidential information to a reporter and then being untruthful about it. She accepted the reprimand, and has said of the federal reports: “There were allegations against me, not findings. That’s a big difference.” She has also cited death threats as a factor in her departure.
Hayden was fined $5,000 by the State Ethics Commission in 2024 over a press release his office issued attacking a political opponent during the 2022 primary, which the Commission treated as using public resources for a campaign purpose.
Champion has no comparable finding and campaigns on that contrast.
Separately, questions have been raised about signatures on Rollins’s nomination papers. A Chelsea city councillor and Republican state committeeman says his signature appears on her sheets though he never signed, and reporting has flagged duplicate signatures and eleven signatures from a single Chelsea address in what appears to be one handwriting. Rollins qualified for the ballot and no formal challenge is pending. She has called the matter a distraction and says she clears the threshold with hundreds of signatures to spare even setting Chelsea aside.
What they actually disagree about
Body camera footage. Rollins supports releasing footage of critical incidents within 30 days. Champion wants it faster. Hayden opposes a fixed deadline and argues for case-by-case discretion while investigations are open.
Police accountability. Hayden charged a Boston police officer with manslaughter days after a fatal traffic stop shooting, an unusual step for a Suffolk DA. It cost him the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, which endorsed Champion.
Wrongful convictions. Hayden’s Integrity Review Bureau has reviewed 120 applications, advanced 39, and overturned or reduced 11 convictions. Critics note that is a slower pace than under Rollins. The case of Stephen Pina, whose 1996 murder conviction the SJC vacated in July 2026 after Hayden’s office initially opposed relief, has become a recurring attack line.
Diversion. Hayden points to roughly 25,100 cases diverted, 1,300 referrals to specialty courts, and more than 200 completions of his Services Over Sentences program.
The mayor. Rollins said at an August 20 forum: “We have a passive DA right now who is in the mayor’s pocket.” Mayor Michelle Wu has endorsed Hayden, as has State Senator Lydia Edwards.
The money, through July 31
Figures below are total receipts reported to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance for January 1 through July 31, 2026, retrieved directly from OCPF’s records on August 30:
- Hayden: $156,816.00 across 438 contributions
- Champion: $75,634.00 across 338 contributions
- Rollins: $10,069.50 across 47 contributions
The timing is as striking as the totals. Rollins reported no receipts at all between January 1 and June 30. Every dollar she raised this year came in during July. Champion’s committee did not organize until April 1 and reported nothing in the first quarter, so her total reflects four months rather than seven.
Hayden has raised roughly fifteen times what Rollins has this cycle. August reports are not due until early September, so this is the last public picture before the vote.
The sheriff is not on this ballot
Worth stating plainly, because we have been covering Sheriff Steven Tompkins’s federal trial and readers keep asking.
Massachusetts sheriffs serve six-year terms and run in 2028. Tompkins’s current term runs to January 2029. The Secretary of the Commonwealth’s official primary list contains exactly one sheriff’s race in the entire state, a vacancy in Franklin County, and no Suffolk entry. Neither the Clerk of Courts nor the Register of Deeds is on the ballot either; both are next up in 2030.
United States Senate
The statewide race driving turnout. Edward J. Markey, the incumbent, faces Seth Moulton, the congressman from the Sixth District, in the Democratic primary. On the Republican side, John Deaton is unopposed.
Public polling favors Markey. A Suffolk University and Boston Globe poll released August 18 had him ahead 52 to 38. Moulton has centered his closing argument on age and technology; asked at an August 20 debate what artificial intelligence tools he uses himself, Markey answered “whatever is inside of my iPhone and my iPad.”
Congress: check which district you are in
Suffolk County is split across three congressional districts, and the boundaries surprise people.
Fifth District, covering Revere and Winthrop. Contested Democratic primary. Katherine M. Clark, the House Democratic Whip, whose home address is in Revere, faces Tarik Samman of Cambridge, a Harvard Law research associate and union organizer, and Jonathan Paz of Waltham. Both challengers run to Clark’s left on Medicare for All, immigration enforcement, and housing costs. No Republican filed.
Seventh District, covering parts of Boston and Chelsea. Ayanna S. Pressley is unopposed. No Republican filed.
Eighth District, covering South Boston, Dorchester, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain and parts south. Contested and genuinely competitive. Stephen F. Lynch, the incumbent since 2001 and a former ironworker, faces Patrick Thomas Roath of Jamaica Plain, an attorney and former aide to Governor Deval Patrick. Roath out-raised Lynch through June, $1.1 million to $817,000, and Lynch then spent nearly $700,000 in July, largely on advertising, cutting his balance by more than half. Roath trailed by 26 points in February. He is endorsed by former Governor Deval Patrick, the Boston Teachers Union and AFT Massachusetts, and chairs the board of Common Cause Massachusetts. His central attack is that Lynch was the only member of the Massachusetts delegation to vote for the Laken Riley Act. Robert Gerald Burke is unopposed on the Republican ballot.
Governor’s Council
Three districts cover Suffolk County, and all three have contested Democratic primaries. No Republican filed in any of them.
- District 6, covering Chelsea, Revere, Winthrop and parts of Boston: incumbent Terrence W. Kennedy against Diann Mary Baylis, an immigration attorney from Marblehead.
- District 4, covering much of Boston plus Quincy and the South Shore: incumbent Christopher A. Iannella, Jr., who has held the seat since 1993, against Ronald Primo Iacobucci of Quincy.
- District 3, covering Allston-Brighton plus Cambridge, Brookline and Newton: incumbent Mara Dolan against Margie Palladino, a family court reform advocate.
State Senate: three contested races
No Republican filed in any Suffolk-area Senate district.
First Suffolk, covering South Boston and adjoining precincts, is the highest-profile legislative race in the city. Incumbent Nicholas P. Collins faces Latoya Sherria Gayle, who works on child care policy at Neighborhood Villages, and Juwan Khiry Skeens, a former Boston youth worker who ran against Collins in 2024. It is widely read as a test of Mayor Wu’s influence: she endorsed Gayle after Collins twice blocked her commercial property tax shift in the Senate. Governor Healey and major labor unions back Collins.
The money is unusually visible. The Wu-aligned Boston Leads independent expenditure PAC has spent $84,411 since organizing on July 16, of which $53,044 went to supporting Gayle and $31,367 to supporting Lander in the Suffolk and Middlesex race. Roughly $68,500 in independent spending backs Collins, including about $35,000 from a Realtors’ PAC. Collins has said the mayor “is sparing no expense to install a blind loyalist.”
Suffolk and Middlesex, covering Boston precincts plus Cambridge, Belmont and Watertown. Incumbent William N. Brownsberger faces Daniel Lander, a former senior aide to Mayor Wu, who is endorsed by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Wu, and the Working Families Party. The same property tax fight runs underneath this one.
Norfolk and Suffolk, covering West Roxbury and Roslindale plus Dedham, Norwood and Westwood. Incumbent Michael F. Rush faces Persis S. Yu.
Three Suffolk senators are unopposed: Liz Miranda in the Second Suffolk, Lydia Marie Edwards in the Third Suffolk, and Sal N. DiDomenico in Middlesex and Suffolk.
State House: only two of nineteen are contested
Nineteen House districts touch Suffolk County. Seventeen incumbents face nobody at all, and no Republican filed in a single one of the nineteen.
The two contested races:
Nineteenth Suffolk, Winthrop and part of Revere. Incumbent Jeffrey Rosario Turco faces LeeAllen Matthew Meyer, a paramedic with Mass General Brigham Home Hospital and Cataldo Ambulance. Turco won the seat in a 2021 special election with 36 percent of a four-way primary and has not faced a primary challenger since. He is a leading opponent of Winthrop’s compliance with the MBTA Communities housing law and has acknowledged voting for President Trump. His campaign account has been reported at more than $300,000. Meyer supports compliance with the housing law and runs on health care access and State House transparency.
Fifteenth Suffolk, Jamaica Plain and Mission Hill. Incumbent Samantha Montaño faces Steven Ray Berry of Boston. We found no substantive coverage of Berry’s background or platform beyond his filing.
Register of Probate
Stephanie L. Everett of Mattapan is unopposed on the Democratic ballot, and no Republican filed. She is effectively elected on Tuesday.
Statewide offices
Every Democratic constitutional officer is running unopposed: Governor Maura Healey, Lieutenant Governor Kimberley Driscoll, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, Secretary William Francis Galvin, Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg, and Auditor Diana DiZoglio.
The Republican ballot has one contested race, for Governor, between Michael Roger Minogue of Hamilton and Brian Shortsleeve of Barnstable. Republicans nominated nobody for Secretary of State or Auditor, so those lines will be blank on the GOP ballot.
One footnote worth knowing, and it is the most significant election-law story of this cycle. A single paid signature gatherer collected for three statewide Republican candidates, and all three were engulfed in allegations that names were forged from a party voter database.
The State Ballot Law Commission struck roughly 1,000 signatures from Attorney General candidate Michael C. Walsh and removed him from the ballot, after a forensic document examiner testified to indications of fraud. On July 10 an Essex Superior Court judge reinstated him on purely procedural grounds, because the Democratic Party had failed to serve its objection by certified mail, while noting there was “substantial evidence in the record of voter fraud.” An SJC justice upheld the reinstatement on July 13. The fraud allegations were never decided on the merits. Attorney General Campbell later publicly asked Walsh to withdraw and he refused. He appears on Tuesday’s ballot, unopposed.
Two other Republicans were ruled off before printing: Lieutenant Governor candidate Anne Manning Martin and Anne Brensley. 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 on the ballot at all.
Four Boston polling places moved
The city changed four locations for this primary. If you vote in any of these precincts, confirm before you go:
- Ward 2, Precinct 1: General Warren Apartments, 47 Rear Washington Street, Community Room
- Ward 2, Precinct 3: St. Mary’s and St. Catherine of Siena Parish, 46 Winthrop Street, Multi-Purpose Room, enter on the right side
- Ward 9, Precinct 1: IBA Administrative Offices, 85 West Newton Street
- Ward 22, Precinct 3: Brighton Branch, Boston Public Library, 40 Academy Hill Road
No other Boston polling places changed. Confirm yours at boston.gov/elections or through the Secretary’s lookup at VoteInMA.com.
Turnout is running low
Boston has 438,367 registered voters across 275 precincts, with more than 1,872 poll workers assigned. The city mailed 45,273 mail and absentee ballots and had 25,210 back as of August 27. In-person early voting drew only 4,558 votes.
In a race where roughly 5,000 primary votes can decide a legislative seat, that math matters.
Statewide, 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.
Unofficial results may not start posting until 10 p.m. Tuesday, and Boston expects precinct-level results by 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Common questions
Is the Suffolk County sheriff on the 2026 ballot?
No. Massachusetts sheriffs serve six-year terms and next run in 2028. Steven Tompkins’s term runs to January 2029.
Who is running for Suffolk County District Attorney?
Three Democrats: incumbent Kevin Hayden, former DA and former U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins, and attorney Linda Champion. No Republican filed, so the primary winner will be the next district attorney.
Which congressional district am I in?
Suffolk County spans three. Revere and Winthrop are in the Fifth District with Katherine Clark. Parts of Boston and Chelsea are in the Seventh with Ayanna Pressley. South Boston, Dorchester, Hyde Park and Jamaica Plain are in the Eighth with Stephen Lynch. Confirm yours at VoteInMA.com.
Can I still vote early or by mail?
No. Early voting ended August 28 and mail ballot applications closed August 25. If you already have a mail ballot, it must be received by 8 p.m. Tuesday, and it cannot be returned at a polling place.
What time do polls close?
8 p.m. Anyone in line at that time may still vote.
Candidate information verified against the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s official 2026 state primary candidate lists, with local ballot reporting from the Revere Journal, Winthrop Transcript, and Chelsea Record. Campaign finance figures are from OCPF filings through July 31, 2026. Confirm your polling place at VoteInMA.com. General information, not legal advice.