Last week, the Massachusetts Top-Two Primary Elections Initiative, which would dissolve all political-party primaries, passed the requirements to collect signatures to gain ballot access for the November 2026 election. The initiative would result in a single “jungle” primary—a primary in which all candidates run against each other at the same time, regardless of party affiliation—and only the top two finishers would advance to the general election. This change would impact state elections for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and the state legislature, as well as elections for both houses of Congress. California, Washington, and Alaska have all adopted variants of this structure.
Given Massachusetts’ voter distribution—including 1.3 million registered Democrats, roughly 400,000 registered Republicans, and a remainder of predominantly Democratic-voting independents—this initiative would marginalize conservative voices in state and national elections.
Proponents of this measure argue that it would produce fairer elections by eliminating partisan restrictions from the primary. They claim that a Top-Two system would identify the “top-two” candidates overall rather than one from each party, and thus more accurately reflect the people’s will. Much of their concern centers on the idea that a disproportionately high number of radical voters participate in the primaries, so the primaries lead to a general-election slate of more extreme candidates.
Given that only 20% of eligible voters participate in the Massachusetts primaries, primary outcomes may not truly encompass the views of the Commonwealth. Moreover, because 65% of voters in the Commonwealth are registered as independent, their voices go unheard in the primaries. Even though they may choose a party ballot, they cannot support different parties for different offices in the same primary election.
If implemented in the past, this system would have substantially altered the outcomes of gubernatorial races. In 2014, for example, Charlie Baker, a Republican who ultimately won the governorship, would likely never have passed the jungle primary. He received around 116,000 votes in the Republican primary, compared to Martha Coakley’s 229,000 and Steve Grossman’s 196,000 in the Democratic primary. Even as the incumbent in 2018, when Baker won the general election with 1.8 million votes to Jay Gonzalez’s 885,000, Baker might have lost in the jungle primary stage, as he only received the third-largest number of votes in the primaries. Therefore, the primary vote did not represent the larger population’s choice.
Moreover, regardless of who wins the general election, shutting out alternative perspectives during the election cycle fails all the people of Massachusetts. Two-party-based primaries force debate on the issues confronting the state of Massachusetts and the nation through media coverage, campaign events, and dinner-table chatter. Eliminating this structure would narrow public discourse and further marginalize certain perspectives.
Since only about 20% of voters turn out for primaries, we should address the true problem of low participation, not party primaries, through better outreach, civic education, and easier access to voting. California’s experience with a jungle primary, in which only half of general-election voters participate, shows that simply changing the rules does not magically fix turnout.
A Top-Two system risks letting a small slice of the electorate decide which two candidates everyone else can consider in November. Rather than shrinking the range of options in the general election, Massachusetts should strengthen participation so that the primaries better reflect the Commonwealth’s full diversity of views.