The One Minute Geographer: Massachusetts (2): Is Massachusetts Really the Home of Liberalism?
If you’re on a quiz show and you are asked to name ‘the most liberal state,’ they would probably call your answer correct if you said Massachusetts. It certainly has the reputation, and it’s been a reliably ‘blue’ state, voting for every Democratic presidential candidate since… well only since they voted for their own former governor Michael Dukakis in 1988. Before that, Massachusetts gave its electoral votes twice to Ronald Reagan, in 1980 against Carter, and again in 1984 against Mondale. Granted the margins for the Republican candidate were slim: .1% in 1980 for example.
So, then Bill Clinton swept the slate clean in 1992 against John McCain? Not really. Bill Clinton only got 48% of the vote; Bush got 29% and H. Ross Perot (remember him?) got 23%. That was the highest percentage Perot received from any state. So Bush and Perot combined received more votes than Bill Clinton.
Since 1988 Massachusetts has indeed been reliably blue, giving 60% or more of its vote to Obama twice, then Hillary Clinton, and then Biden. In the 2020 election, Massachusetts gave Biden his highest percentage of the vote in any state (66%) except Vermont. But still, many other states in recent years have voted “more liberal” than Massachusetts. When Obama faced McCain in 2008, 7 other…
