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Boston's Morning Newsletter
Can Haley catch up to Trump in Massachusetts' primary? Here's a look at the math
Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from WBUR's daily morning newsletter, WBUR Today. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.
We’re officially one week away from Massachusetts’ presidential primary — one of 16 contests being held on Super Tuesday this year.
About one in 15 registered Massachusetts voters have already turned in their ballots through early in-person and mail-in voting, Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office said yesterday afternoon. If you’re among the other 14, check out our new primary guide for everything you need to know about casting your ballot — and read below for a quick look at where the Republican race stands.
Massachusetts’ delegate math: As WBUR’s Anthony Brooks reported this week, Super Tuesday comes at a moment of division in the Massachusetts Republican ranks — between die-hard supporters of former President Donald Trump and old-style moderate Republicans lining up behind Nikki Haley. “We don’t have coronations here. And so why just say Trump is the presumptive nominee. He’s not,” former MassGOP chair Jennifer Nassour, who is leading Haley’s campaign in the Bay State, told Anthony. However, Haley’s climb got even steeper after losing to Trump by double-digits in her home state of South Carolina over the weekend. And the Mass. GOP’s primary delegate rules may make it even harder for her to pick up ground.
- Zoom out: Trump currently has a 110-20 delegate lead over Haley (You can keep count, too, with NPR’s tracker). That’s a relatively small lead, considering that 2,429 delegates are up for grabs in the GOP primary and 1,215 are needed to clinch the nomination. Over a third of all delegates — 874 — will be awarded across the country on Super Tuesday.
- Zoom in: Massachusetts will award 40 of those delegates — and not necessarily in proportion to each candidate’s vote share. Thanks to a change made by Trump allies in 2020, any candidate who gets over 50% wins all 40 delegates. (The bad news for Haley is the last seven GOP primary polls in Massachusetts tracked by FiveThirtyEight show Trump with over 50% support.)
- Can independents make it close? That’s the Haley campaign’s hope. Independents make up around 60% of all registered voters in Massachusetts, and they can choose to vote in any primary. But through mail-in voting so far, most Massachusetts voters are still requesting and returning Democratic primary ballots. According to data provided by Galvin’s office yesterday, Democratic ballots have accounted for nearly 221,000 of the almost 311,000 mail-in ballots returned so far. And they were 515,000 of the over 731,00 mailed out.
PSA: Today is the last day to consider sending mail-in ballots back via good old-fashioned snail mail. That’s because ballots must be returned by the time polls close next Tuesday and the Post Office recommends allowing up to seven days for delivery. Galvin’s office says “anyone who hasn’t mailed back their ballot by [today] should really use a drop box, if possible.”
- Find your local dropbox by searching for your city or town here.
Et tu? Two weeks after Milton voters put the town in noncompliance with the MBTA Communities Act, Wrentham officials are mulling whether to fight the state zoning law, too. WBUR’s Fausto Menard reports the town’s Select Board plans to vote tonight on sending a letter opposing the law to Gov. Maura Healey and local state legislators.
- Wrentham is not directly served by the T, but borders three other towns with commuter rail stops. An “adjacent community,” Wrentham is therefore required by the law to rezone at least 50 acres by the end of this year to allow up to 750 new units of multi-family housing to be built as of right . (If it doesn’t, the town risks losing state housing and infrastructure funding, like Milton.)
Seaport shelter ASAP: A new family overflow shelter in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood is in its final planning stages. Healey told reporters yesterday that the nonprofit United Way — which has opened nine other shelters across the state — is working to open the shelter within an office building at 24 Farnsworth Street “as soon as possible.”
- What’s next: A United Way spokesperson told WBUR’s Amy Sokolow an opening date is not yet set, but the group is getting ready to share details with the neighborhood as soon as this evening.
P.S.— Tickets for the Boston Pops spring concert season — which features everything from Harry Connick Jr. to a live-scored screening of “Jurassic Park” — hit the market this morning at 10 a.m. Check out the full schedule and get tickets on the BSO’s website.
