Massachusetts's electoral votes in U.S. presidential elections 1789-2020

Voters from the state of Massachusetts have been involved in all 59 U.S. presidential elections, and have voted for the overall winning candidate on 39 occasions, giving a success rate of 66 percent. Generally speaking, Massachusetts has voted for the more liberal candidate throughout its electoral history, voting for the Federalist, Whig and Republican Party nominees throughout most of the nineteenth century, and then switching to the Democratic Party in the twentieth century. Since 1928, Massachusetts has voted for the Democratic nominee in 20 out of 24 elections, breaking with this tradition only when voting for Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan in each of their landslide victories. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden won with almost two thirds of the popular vote.

Bay State presidents

A total of four U.S. presidents have been born in Massachusetts; these were both John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams, John F. Kennedy, and George H. W. Bush (although his family moved to Connecticut the year after his birth); of these four, Bush was the only who failed to win in his birth state, however his competitor, Michael Dukakis, was also a Massachusetts native and was the state governor at the time. Calvin Coolidge, while born and raised in Vermont, spent most of his adulthood and political career in Massachusetts, and was a resident there when ascending to the presidency. Massachusetts was also the birth or home state of several losing candidates, such as Rufus King, Daniel Webster or John Kerry, all of whom carried Massachusetts in their respective elections; while former Governor Mitt Romney was the only major party nominee not to win the state while living there.

Electoral vote allocation

As one of the original thirteen colonies, Massachusetts had a high share of the electoral college votes in early years, rising to 22 votes in the 1810s. This number then fluctuated throughout most of the nineteenth century, between twelve and 15 votes, before rising to 18 votes in the 1910s and 1920s. In the past hundred years, due to a slower population growth rate than in other states, Massachusetts' allocation of electoral votes has gradually fallen to eleven votes in the past few elections, and it is expected to stay at this level in the 2024 election.