Everything you need to know about the statewide candidates

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This election, Massachusetts voters will choose who serves in the state’s highest offices. The Boston Globe is sharing its guide to the candidates with The Light’s readers to help you navigate the general-election ballot.

U.S. Senate

Three candidates are challenging incumbent U.S. Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat who in September beat back a primary challenger from within the state’s congressional delegation for the second time in as many reelection campaigns. His opponents in November include John Deaton, a Republican; Shiva Ayyadurai, an independent candidate; and Joe Tache, who’s running under the Socialism and Liberation designation.

Edward J. Markey

Party: Democrat
Hometown: Malden

The incumbent, Markey has served as Massachusetts’ junior senator since 2013, and is among Congress’s longest-serving members, having first won election to the U.S. House in 1976. He’s reshaped his political identity in recent years in becoming an unabashed progressive champion who’s promoted Medicare For All and the Green New Deal. He’s also drawn support from prominent progressives, including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

Markey defeated Representative Seth Moulton in the Democratic primary by 30 percentage points, in part by casting the younger congressman as insufficiently liberal in a primary whose voters largely skewed left. Markey, 80, has said that, if re-elected, this would be his last term in office, which he said he needs to “finish this progressive agenda.”

John Deaton

Party: Republican
Hometown: Bolton

Deaton, a personal injury attorney and cryptocurrency booster who ran unsuccessfully against Senator Elizabeth Warren in 2024, is again vying to flip a Massachusetts Senate seat.

Originally from Michigan, Deaton grew up on public assistance and was the first in his family to graduate high school. He attended New England School of Law, served in the Marine Corps, and ran a Rhode Island law firm. He moved to Massachusetts shortly before launching his run against Warren.

Deaton, 59, said he has never voted for Donald Trump, but agrees with his party’s standard-bearer on issues such as securing the border and deregulating energy markets. He also backs a path to citizenship for children in the country without documentation and codifying abortion protections into law.

Shiva Ayyadurai

Party: Independent
Hometown: Belmont

Ayyadurai is a three-time U.S. Senate candidate who ran as an independent against Senator Elizabeth Warren in 2018 and in the Republican primary in 2020. He also launched a presidential campaign in 2024 as an independent, earning less than 1 percent of the vote in Massachusetts.

A scientist and entrepreneur, Ayyadurai holds four degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and promotes himself as an “engineer, not career politician.” His campaign has described him as holding a mix of policy beliefs: Ayyadurai supports using paper ballots in elections, has described himself as “pro-life,” and says he would protect what he calls “medical freedom.”

The state’s top elections official in September referred fraud allegations against Ayyadurai to state prosecutors, saying he received “several complaints” that the candidate submitted fraudulent signatures to local officials to qualify for the ballot.

Joe Tache

Party: Socialism and Liberation
Hometown: Boston

Tache, a community organizer and socialist, moved to Boston to attend Northeastern University in 2013, where he said he first began questioning capitalism while studying business.

Since then, he has worked in youth programming as an instructor for first-generation college students and run an afterschool and summer program that he said “focused on workers’ rights.”

He has proposed tackling the cost of living by bringing corporations under public ownership, creating a federal jobs program, and redirecting funds set aside for foreign conflicts to domestic priorities. He’s also reached voters in unconventional ways, such as producing what he described as a 13-track socialist hip hop album called, “Time’s Up for the Billionaires.”

— Anjali Huynh

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Governor

Incumbent Governor Maura Healey is seeking a second term as the state’s chief executive four years after becoming the first woman and first openly LGBTQ candidate to be elected governor in Massachusetts history. She faces two challengers in Republican Michael Minogue and independent candidate Andrea James.

Maura Healey

Party: Democrat
Hometown: Arlington

Healey is seeking re-election on a pitch of addressing affordability in a high-cost state, and casting President Trump as the underlying problem causing many of those woes.

Healey’s bid also serves as a referendum on her first term, during which she has sought to tackle the state’s housing crisis — Healey signed a $5.2 billion housing bill two years ago — and skyrocketing energy costs through a series of temporary relief measures. She signed a $1 billion tax relief measure early in her first term.

The Democrat has also seized on the Trump administration’s aggressive federal immigration enforcement, pitching herself as a bulwark against the president, including in signing the so-called PROTECT Act, a law aimed, in part, at preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from detaining immigrants in public schools, child care centers, and health care centers.

Healey’s running mate is Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, the former Salem mayor, who is also seeking a second statewide term.

Michael Minogue

Party: Republican
Hometown: Hamilton

Minogue emerged from relative political obscurity this time last year to easily win the GOP nomination. An Army veteran, Minogue made a small fortune when the business he ran, Danvers-based Abiomed, was sold to Johnson & Johnson in 2022, wealth he’s now pouring into his campaign — more than $17 million, as of the end of September — that he’s pitched on the phrase “AAOK,” meaning accountability, affordability, opportunity, and keeping communities safe.

Minogue, for example, has pledged to end the requirement that Massachusetts effectively zero out the state emissions by 2050, and to enact a “gas tax holiday,” changes that would require legislative approval. He’s also vowed to opt the state in for a $1,700 tax credit that reimburses donors who give to scholarship programs.

Minogue, while a first-time candidate, has been active politically before, contributing more than $400,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2025, and hosting a 2024 fundraiser for the GOP presidential ticket in Gloucester, headlined by now-Vice President JD Vance. A longtime independent, Minogue re-enrolled with the Republican Party before launching his campaign.

His running mate, New Bedford City Councilor Shawn Oliver, suspended his campaign after his Oct. 18 arrest on a drunk-driving charge, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

Andrea James

Party: Independent
Hometown: Boston

James is an advocate for incarcerated women and a first-time candidate for governor. She is the founder of the group Families for Justice as Healing and the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, and has been a vocal critic of plans to build a new state women’s prison in Massachusetts.

She is casting herself as an “independent voice” untethered to the outside interests she argued have “hijacked” major political parties. James would be the first Black woman to win the governor’s office.

A longtime voice for reducing prison populations overall, she embraced advocacy work after she was convicted of and sentenced to two years in prison on federal wire fraud charges in 2009. James, a former real estate attorney, was accused of misappropriating client funds and defrauding mortgage lenders and homeowners, according to a disbarment decision filed by the state’s Board of Bar Overseers.

James’s running mate is lieutenant governor candidate Kayla Kittredge, a Middlesex Community College student.

— Samantha J. Gross

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Attorney General

Incumbent Democrat Andrea Joy Campbell is facing a challenge from Republican attorney Michael C. Walsh for the role of the state’s chief law enforcement officer, overseeing an office that handles criminal prosecutions, represents state agencies in litigation, and enforces state consumer protection laws.

Andrea Joy Campbell

Party: Democrat
Hometown: Dartmouth

Campbell, the incumbent attorney general who made history as the first Black woman to win statewide office four years ago, is seeking a second term, pitching herself as a leader in the state’s opposition to the Trump administration.

A Boston native, Campbell was the first in her family to attend college and worked as an attorney on Beacon Hill before she was elected to Boston’s City Council. She was the first Black woman elected president of the Boston City Council and unsuccessfully ran for Boston mayor in 2021 before winning a bruising Democratic primary for attorney general in 2022.

Since the Trump administration took office last year, Campbell has filed or joined dozens of lawsuits against the federal government on issues from challenging the administration’s attempts to end birthright citizenship to disputing the federal government’s efforts to slash research funding.

Michael C. Walsh

Party: Republican
Hometown: Lynnfield

Walsh, a first-time statewide candidate, is running for attorney general against Campbell, arguing that she is too focused on national issues and building a political profile.

A criminal defense attorney, Walsh said he would enforce an audit of the state Legislature, something state Auditor Diana DiZoglio has sought — and accused Campbell of helping stonewall — since 72 percent of voters supported a 2024 ballot question giving her that authority. He also has criticized what he calls “administrative overreach” in Campbell’s enforcement of the MBTA Communities Act, the law that requires municipalities served by the T to make room for more multifamily housing.

Walsh was among the Republican candidates who faced allegations of submitting fake signatures to get on the primary ballot. The state’s highest court ultimately ruled Walsh’s name could appear on the ballot because of a technical error with how the challenge against his signatures was filed — despite the court acknowledging there was “substantial evidence” of fraud, which Walsh has blamed on a consultant he, and other campaigns, hired.

— Anjali Huynh

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Secretary of State

Secretary of State William Francis Galvin is seeking a record ninth term in office as the state’s chief elections official against Anne R. Brensley, a Republican. The office is responsible for ensuring public agencies comply with public records laws, enforcing the state’s securities law, and ensuring lobbyists comply with registration and disclosure laws.

William Francis Galvin

Party: Democrat
Hometown: Brighton

Galvin is already the country’s current longest-serving chief state elections official, having led the secretary’s office since 1995. In the two election cycles before this one, he beat back high-profile primary challengers who pitched themselves as more progressive alternatives to the seasoned Democrat.

In announcing his run this time, in which he ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, Galvin pitched himself as a bulwark against any attempts by the Trump administration to undermine the state’s elections. “To leave a battlefield in the middle of a battle, it’s something I’m not going to do,” told the Globe.

Should he win reelection, Galvin said he intends for his next term to be his last (though he’s expressed similar intentions before). In addition to his own race, Galvin is also personally pushing a ballot question that would allow residents to register to vote on Election Day.

Anne R. Brensley

Party: Republican
Hometown: Wayland

Brensley is an attorney and former Wayland Select Board member who’s taken a winding path to the secretary of state’s race. Brensley had been endorsed to be lieutenant governor by gubernatorial candidate Michael Minogue ahead of the GOP convention, where party activists also endorsed her for the state’s No. 2 role earlier this year. But she then failed to qualify for the primary ballot, alleging that a consultant collected fake signatures for her and other candidates.

She then launched a successful write-in campaign to win the GOP nomination for secretary of state and challenge Galvin.

In pivoting to her new campaign, she has pitched herself as a business-friendly secretary — the office handles corporation and other business filings — who would “reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and compliance costs.” Brensley, who was born in Honduras, has said she is the first Latina to be a major-party nominee for statewide office in Massachusetts history.

— Samantha J. Gross

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State Treasurer

Incumbent Democrat Deborah B. Goldberg, already the second-longest serving state treasurer in Massachusetts history, is seeking a fourth term against Republican Elizabeth Dionne, a former Belmont Select Board member. The office oversees a loosely connected series of boards and panels overseeing the state’s retirement fund, the state lottery, and alcohol regulation, among others.

Deborah B. Goldberg

Party: Democrat
Hometown: Brookline

Goldberg was first elected to serve as the state’s fiscal officer in 2014. Her current term has been colored by the drama surrounding her attempt to fire Shannon O’Brien, a former treasurer, as chair of the state’s Cannabis Control Commission, which set off a three-year — and still ongoing — legal fight.

Goldberg, whose family started the supermarket chain Stop & Shop, served on the Brookline Board of Selectmen before running for statewide office. In seeking a fourth term, she has promised voters another four years of managing the state’s tax dollars and pensions responsibly, as well as expanding public-private partnerships like the state’s seeded Baby Steps Savings Plan, which gives families $50 in a seed deposit to save for future education costs.

The treasurer also had been among those who helped name the Cannabis Control Commission’s members before legislators this year reshaped the law, stripping Goldberg of her appointment powers and giving the governor sole authority for choosing commissioners.

Elizabeth Dionne

Party: Republican
Hometown: Belmont

Dionne is a lawyer and mother of four who left the party twice over the last six years, including for three years while she served in a seat on her local select board. Earlier this year, she went on the offensive against the five-member state Lottery Commission — which is chaired by the state treasurer — accusing it of using “predatory marketing practices” to hook younger players.

Dionne has said that if elected, she’d order an “independent” audit of each of the 13 departments, agencies, or boards overseen by the state treasurer’s office.

She’s also promised to not serve more than two, four-year terms if elected, and to pursue other changes, including automatically returning unclaimed property to residents. Currently, Massachusetts residents have to search a public website to determine if they have money or other unclaimed funds that are owed to them.

— Samantha J. Gross

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State auditor

Democratic incumbent Diana DiZoglio is facing a challenge from Libertarian candidate Al Ozonoff as she seeks a second term in the office tasked with conducting financial, performance, and technical audits of state departments and agencies.

Diana DiZoglio

Party: Democrat
Hometown: Methuen

DiZoglio’s first term has been defined in large part by her push to audit the state Legislature, where she once served in the House and Senate. After her early attempts to audit the Legislature were rebuffed by lawmakers and Attorney General Andrea Campbell, she took the fight to voters, championing a successful ballot question in 2024 that explicitly gave her office the authority to launch the probe.

Despite public support for the effort, and prodding from the Supreme Judicial Court, the audit itself has remained mired in a legal, political, and legislative morass amid opposition from legislative leaders, who argue it could be unconstitutional. DiZoglio is pushing another ballot question this election cycle that would apply the state’s public records law to the Legislature and the governor’s office.

Those efforts have earned her plaudits from both Republicans and progressive Democrats who’ve argued Beacon Hill needs more transparency, making DiZoglio an unusual political figure within a relatively obscure statewide office.

Al Ozonoff

Party: Libertarian
Hometown: Medford

Ozonoff, a researcher and data analyst running as a Libertarian, says he, too, supports the voter-approved legislative audit law and acknowledges there is “a pretty strong public mandate to see that go forward.” But he also questions whether it could run afoul of the constitutional separation of powers, as lawmakers have argued.

He said, if elected, his focus would “stay” on executive branch agencies, which are among those the office must audit every three years.

He said the goal of his long-shot challenge isn’t solely centered on taking out the incumbent Democrat. Ozonoff is also trying to help Libertarians become a recognized political party in the state. To do that, he would need to win at least 3 percent of the vote in November.

— Kelly Garrity

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