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Massachusetts voters look like they’ve largely made up their minds on two of the highest-profile questions on the November ballot. They seem on track to retain legalized recreational marijuana and a sweeping new gun law passed in 2024, according to a new poll. 

In a MassINC Polling Group survey (toplines, crosstabs) for CommonWealth Beacon, attitudes toward the other seven ballot questions were more mixed, with percentages of likely voters saying they expect to vote yes hovering in the high 40s and low 50s. 

But the two final questions on the ballot are bucking that trend. Sixty-one percent of likely voters said they would vote no on Question 8, which if approved would end legal sales of recreational marijuana and create civil penalties for possessing more than a small amount of recreational cannabis. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said they would vote yes. 

Question 9, a referendum on whether to keep the state’s sweeping 2024 firearms law, looks set for a resounding affirmation of the law, with 70% of respondents saying they would vote to keep it and 18% saying they would repeal it. 

These two are also the questions voters seem most sure about, with just 11% of voters undecided on each. That is the lowest undecided share of any of the nine questions on the ballot. 

“People don’t want to go backwards on these two things,” said Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group. 

“They might not love the Legislature,” Koczela said of voters, pointing to their strong support two years ago for a ballot question to audit lawmakers. “But they approve of what the Legislature did on firearms, at least.”

The survey of 800 likely voters was conducted online Sept. 14 through 22. It has a credibility interval of plus or minus 4 percentage points. 

Question 1, which would apply the public records law to the Legislature and governor’s office, has the support of 63% of respondents with 14% opposed. That’s lower than the support seen in a UMass Amherst/WCVB poll in August, which found 84% support for the measure with just 7% opposed. 

The public records question is considered a natural heir to state Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s successful ballot push last cycle to allow her office to audit the Legislature. That audit attempt, which the Legislature has vocally resisted, is stuck in a political and legal morass at the moment. 

The CommonWealth Beacon survey asked voters to name their top issues at the ballot box in their own words. When the polling group reviewed those answers, guns and marijuana were the only ballot questions people cited as reasons to get out and vote. 

“Those are your two marquee ones that were actually drawing people out,” said MPG vice president Rich Parr. 

In 2016, nearly 54% of Massachusetts voters approved legalizing recreational marijuana. A decade later, they are being asked to become the first state to dismantle the market. The repeal campaign is led by the Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts and is backed by the national anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which is funding a similar effort in Maine. 

The ballot question would still allow adults 21 and older to possess up to one ounce of pot without criminal penalty, and it would leave the state’s medical marijuana law in place. 

Question 9 is a veto referendum, a mechanism that lets voters decide whether to keep a law the Legislature has already passed. The 2024 law cracked down on ghost guns and 3-D printed guns, strengthened the state’s red flag law, and expanded the definition of assault weapons, among other changes. Gun rights groups gathered enough signatures to force a referendum but missed the window for the 2024 ballot. 

Most of the other seven questions still lean toward a win, but by less, and with 20% to 25% of voters still undecided. That puts them in “kind of a gray area where it really could move,” said Parr. 

Question 6, which would create a conservation fund that would still depend on legislative appropriation, has 56% support to 24% opposition. 

Four questions failed to crack 50% support in the poll, or just made it over that line, which public opinion experts and ballot question veterans agree leaves the campaigns on shaky ground. 

“It’s different than a candidate poll, where the margin is the best predictor,” Koczela said. In ballot questions, “the yes percent tends to be the best predictor. And if you have a yes percent that’s right around 50, then you’re watching nervously.” What’s more, pollsters generally expect undecided voters on ballot questions to break toward the status quo. 

Most of the ballot campaign money tends to be spent between Labor Day and Election Day, Koczela noted, and “you do kind of see support move the most just in the last eight to 10 weeks.” 

On Question 4, allowing Election Day voter registration, yes holds the lead, 53% to 33%. Question 7, which lowers the lot size requirements to build single-family homes, has support at 51% and opposition at 24%. 

Question 2, letting Committee for Public Counsel Services employees unionize, fell below half support, with yes in the lead, 48% to 25%. Question 5, rewriting the state’s revenue cap, is also narrowly below majority support, with 47 percent in favor and 26% opposed. 

Apart from the two repeal efforts, Question 3 to create all-party primaries looks most endangered, even as the margin stays close. It had the support of 43% of likely voters, with 36% opposed and 20% undecided. 

Despite the record-tying number of questions, and the irritation from Beacon Hill with advocates doing an end-run around the usual legislative process, voters aren’t eager to hand over their direct democracy leverage. 

More than three-quarters of respondents said “it is a good thing for the voters to decide these issues” and just 15% said lawmakers should be deciding more of them. 

With nine questions on the ballot, the pollsters said the usual rules may not apply. Campaigns will compete with one another for attention, which could blunt opposition spending. 

“The numbers may be more sticky than they usually are,” Koczela said. “Or some of these undecideds might just not have heard about the ballot question and might be very persuadable.” 

Many of those undecided voters face unfamiliar subjects, he noted. 

“Some of these are esoteric issues,” Koczela said. ”They’re not all things like marijuana legalization.”

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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10 replies on “Poll shows voters on track to retain legal cannabis and 2024 gun law”

    1. Sire, this is a website. Newspapers are physical media. “The air” is usually used for talking about radio or television programs, of which newspapers and websites are neither.
      Regardless, what an odd comment on a cut-and-dry article about polling results (sourced from another online news outlet, no less).

      1. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime controlled the media through centralized state machinery, strict censorship, and total monopoly over communication channels.

        Key Mechanisms of Media Control

        • Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda: Formed on March 13, 1933, and led by Joseph Goebbels, this ministry regulated and oversaw all press, radio, film, theater, and literature.
        • Press Suppression and Coordination (Gleichschaltung): Independent and opposition newspapers were banned, shut down, or bought out by the Nazi Party. Editors were held legally responsible for content under the Editor Law of 1933, forcing journalists to self-censor or follow state directives. Party newspapers like the Völkischer Beobachter and Der Angriff set the official tone.
        • Radio Monopoly: The regime mass-produced cheap, standardized radio receivers (Volksempfänger or “People’s Receiver”) designed intentionally with a short reception range so citizens could not easily tune into foreign broadcasts. Radio became a primary tool for broadcasting Hitler’s speeches and martial music nationwide.
        • Film and Culture Control: The Reich Chamber of Culture and its sub-agencies (such as the Reich Chamber of Film) required all artists, writers, and filmmakers to register and adhere to Nazi racial and political standards.
        • Censorship and Book Burnings: The regime banned “degenerate” art, music, science, and literature (including works by Jewish, communist, and liberal thinkers like Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, and Thomas Mann). Public book burnings in 1933 symbolized the purge of independent thought.

  2. There are many reasons to vote early this year, including avoiding crowds, campaigners, etc. The large number of ballot questions could also slow down the voting process on November 3rd. In person early voting in Massachusetts takes place from October 17 to October 30.

    In case you have misplaced the red booklet mailed to registered voters several weeks ago, I have included a link below. I plan to look at it before voting and use my list of choices when I vote.
    https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/elections/download/information-for-voters/archive/IFV_2026%20English.pdf

    If you did not receive the red booklet, check your voting status online to be certain that you are still registered to vote. The MA deadline to register for the November election is October 24.
    https://www.sec.state.ma.us/VoterRegistrationSearch/MyVoterRegStatus.aspx

    I like the Progressive Guide to the 2026 Ballot Questions because it has clickable links for each question. This makes it easy to use for anyone who wants a quick answer about who is sponsoring the question and how much they are spending. If you are not progressive, you could still use it for the quick background information .

    https://www.progressivemass.com/2026ballot/

    Question 3, would abolish party primaries in favor of a “jungle primary” in which all candidates for an office compete and the top two winners go on to the general election. The League of Women Voters’ UTUBE video forum on Question 3 helped me to better understand this issue.

    LWV video: Question 3 No Party Primaries
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK5kV3GGjnQ

  4. Everyone knows the New Bedford Light is a far left liberal publication and does not represent the majority of New Bedford and the surrounding communities.

  5. Just received my Ballot, Signed & Sealed it, then “listened” to your Informational Polling Article and determined that I was pretty much inline with the “Positive” Polling Side Numbers… especially after hearing about these Petitions & Laws for the First Time.

    So continue being New Beige’s Beacon of Light for Last Minute, Important, Jump-out Issues.

  6. I enjoy these referendums. They’re the best check we have as citizens on our extremely opaque state government, which definitely should be audited and more transparent about what they’re doing with our tax dollars. However, I’m not very happy with the number of people who want to cut taxes and raise spending simultaneously. We recently passed the “Millionaire Tax” specifically so we could fund free lunch in our schools and expand public transport infrastructure among other things. To rug-pull that money now while also voting to increase expenditures will likely cause financial strain, cancelled programs, and scaled back infrastructure investment. That’s especially bad when the Federal government is increasingly cutting state support to fund unpopular wars abroad.

    However, Question 7 is a great start. We need much greater housing production, and the state and its various municipalities have been dragging their feet even on half-measures to alleviate the problem for a decade now. The existing zoning regime is absolute insanity. While housing costs have been plateauing or even falling across the country, our costs have continued to rise simply because of the unnecessary burdens we put on new housing in this state. We should have more questions like this in following elections.

    Furthermore, I’m glad cannabis sales are quite safe considering the signature campaign that led to it was very sketchy. I disagree with most residents in this state on our strict gun laws at this time though. People need to be able to protect themselves. However, given that the Supreme Court is taking up challenges to Assault Weapons bans in the next session, I’m pretty confident that much of this latest gun law will be declared unconstitutional by next summer anyway. So we’ll see.

    Here’s to having another (hopefully) free and fair election.

  7. Sure support weed and guns but not station 9. This is why the city is in the predicament it is. PRIORITIES! Unless it’s restricting guns this administration needs a good TERMINATION! Think next time you vote!

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