Potential History-Making Firsts in Massachusetts Statewide Offices

Primary elections were held yesterday in Massachusetts, and the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, is tracking results for women candidates in these races. Full results are available on the Election Analysis page on the CAWP website. Complete context about women in the 2022 elections, including candidate lists, summaries, and historical comparisons, is available via CAWP's Election Watch.

Among the most notable results for women:

• Women are 7 of 11 (63.6%) major-party nominees already selected for statewide elective executive offices in Massachusetts, including 5 of 6 (83.3%) Democrats and 2 of 5 (40%) Republicans.
  • Incumbent Attorney General Maura Healey (D) won the Democratic nomination for governor and will run in a general election contest currently rated as “Solid Democrat” by Cook Political Report. If successful in November, Healey will be the first women elected governor of Massachusetts; former acting Governor Jane Swift (R) served in the role upon the resignation of her predecessor. Healey – along with Tina Kotek, the Democratic nominee for governor in Oregon – is also one of two openly lesbian women candidates who have won major-party gubernatorial nominations this year. Should they win, they will be the first openly lesbian women governors in U.S. history. 
  • Mayor Kim Driscoll (D) won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor, while former state Representative Leah Cole Allen won the Republican nomination. Driscoll will run on the same ticket as Democratic gubernatorial nominee Maura Healey (D) in the general election. Women have never served simultaneously as governor and lieutenant governor in any state. This year, four states thus far have women nominees in the same party for both governor and lieutenant governor: Republican nominees in Arkansas and Democratic nominees in Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Ohio. (While women have never served simultaneously as governor and lieutenant governor, there have been several instances historically where women served as both governor and in a position next in line for succession that was not lieutenant governor.)
  • Former Boston City Councilwoman Andrea Campbell (D) won the Democratic nomination in the open-seat contest for attorney general and Rayla Campbell (R) was unopposed for the Republican nomination to challenge incumbent Secretary of State William Francis Galvin (D). Both of these candidates are Black; no Black women have ever been elected to statewide executive office in Massachusetts. All women who have served in statewide elective executive office in Massachusetts to date have been white.
• All 3 (3D) women U.S. House incumbents in Massachusetts were unopposed in the primary election and are strongly favored to win re-election in November.
  • Incumbent U.S. Representative Katherine Clark (D) in MA-05 will be challenged by Caroline Colarusso (R) in an all-woman contest currently rated as “Solid Democrat” by Cook Political Report. Colarusso was the Republican nominee for MA-05 in election 2020, when she was defeated by Clark by 48.7 points. For more on all-woman general elections contests, see the CAWP fact sheet Woman vs. Woman: Congressional and Gubernatorial Races. 

For more information, see the full analysis of how women fared in yesterday's contests on our Election Analysis page. Complete context about women in the 2022 elections can be found on CAWP's Election Watch.