Massachusetts voted on 9 major ballot questions. What do the results mean for the state?

13 after 7, the ballots have been counted not only for the candidates, but for the nine ballot questions put before Bay State voters. Jim Sturgis is the executive director of the Pioneer Institute, back with us this morning to break down the results for a few of those nine questions. Jim, good to see you again this morning. Appreciate you being here. Yeah, so I mean, I think the big takeaways are probably that, look, there's so much. The strategy to run against Trump was a very good one, and people were really mad about Trump. He said he's not on the ballot, but he definitely impacted votes here. If you take a look at question five, for example, there was a lot of underperformance in those communities that had supported Trump at a higher level before. There were five yeses. I think that's the second thing just to get out to folks. And the legislature should be pretty happy because there's one question that got a yes. That will trouble them. That's a public records law. Well, let's talk about that. That's a public records law. Overwhelming 86% of the vote. It brings Massachusetts in line with the rest of the country when it comes to having business done above board. But will the legislature actually change how it does business? Because we know in the past things have been passed. The audit, for example, they kind of look the other way. It never gets done. Is that going to be the case here, do you think? Well, I think the state auditor is enormously talented in getting her message out there and piling up the desire not to implement the audit, the legislature ballot question last time. If the legislature continues on that path, I think there's going to be a lot of pressure on them. This is an open question, Gene. I don't have the answer to it, but we will see, frankly, before the end of the year. As for question three, Jim, voters say no to working primary elections, to reworking them. But yes to question four, and that same day, voter registration. You told us yesterday you thought that was more important of the two. Yeah, no, I do. I do think it's more important of the two. And I think also question three proves that money does not buy you votes. I mean, that was an enormously supported question. Question three to create a single primary. It got dropped here. I think it won a single community in Massachusetts. Last I looked about five o'clock. So that just did not play with voters. And that same day registration getting 57 percent of voters supporting it. Voters also, Jim, overwhelmingly rejecting question eight to repeal the sale of. Recreational marijuana in the Commonwealth, that a surprise to you at all? It didn't surprise me at all, and all the polling pointed in that direction, and frankly, the electorate that was motivated this time was a little further to the left. I think people forget sometimes Massachusetts, like 67% of our voters are unenrolled, but we went massively towards the blue team this time, and I think that portion ended well for the marijuana question as well. And we didn't talk about question seven yesterday that allows rezoning to build single family homes on those smaller lots. Right now, that's 50-50. Last time we checked, the yes was ahead by only 195 votes. Residents, I mean, they're really split down the middle on this. How do you think this is going to play out? And if it's that close, does it necessarily mean that it's going to be implemented right away? Look, someone who works for me put that one forward. So I'm close to this and I respect the individual a lot. I think it's probably a pretty good idea in many ways that needs some tweaks. That said, the votes are trending against it at this point. The communities that have not reported yet are probably gonna come out more against it. So I think it may lose by a smidge. Maybe it comes out ahead, but this is one we're very, very divided. A lot of urban communities very supportive and ones that are not urban communities a lot less supportive. And quickly, question two in collective bargaining for public defenders, that got approved. Question five about a limit on state revenue and rebate, the no's are ahead there, that's not officially decided yet. Question six passed to support a natural resource fund, and question nine passes, voters supporting Massachusetts gun laws. Quickly, in the final seconds we have left, Jim, any major takeaway for you from these results? Yeah, no, I think people are supportive of unions making sure that people can get a fair living wage. I think that in terms of question five, that one's going to go to the loss column. I think it's going to lose by about two or three percent. It tells me that people think about affordability as mainly being affected by Trump and other things not as important.