Elections will be held in the U.S. state of Massachusetts in 2026 as part of the 2026 United States elections. At the federal level, elections will be held for a U.S. Senate seat and for each of Massachusetts' 9 U.S. House of Representative districts. At the state level, elections will be held for the Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of the Commonwealth, Treasurer, and State Auditor. Elections will also be held for the General Court (state senate and state house) and the Governor's Council. In addition, several ballot questions may qualify to be placed on the ballot. Primaries will be held on September 1, 2026 and general elections will be held on November 3, 2026.
An election for Massachusetts's Class 2 Senate seat will be held on November 3, 2026. Incumbent Democrat Ed Markey is running for reelection. He faces a primary challenge from fellow Democrat Seth Moulton, a U.S. representative from Massachusetts's 6th congressional district. Moulton has criticized the incumbent for running for reelection at his age (Markey will be 80 while Moulton will be 48 on election day). On the Republican side, John Deaton is making another bid after previously running against Elizabeth Warren as the Republican nominee in 2024.
Elections for Massachusetts's nine seats in the House of Representatives will be held on November 3, 2026. In 2024, Democrats won all nine seats, with all incumbents being re-elected. Primaries will be held on September 1.
Incumbent Democratic governor Maura Healey and lieutenant governor Kim Driscoll are running for reelection. They were first elected in 2022 with 63.74% of the vote.
Mike Kennealy, Michael Minogue, and Brian Shortsleeve are seeking the Republican nomination to challenge the incumbent.
Incumbent Democratic attorney general Andrea Campbell is running for reelection. Campbell won 62.85% of the vote in 2022.
Incumbent Democratic secretary of the commonwealth William F. Galvin is running for reelection to a 9th term. Galvin won 67.69% of the vote in 2022.
Incumbent Democratic treasurer Deb Goldberg is running for reelection. Goldberg won 76.47% of the vote in 2022, facing only third-party opposition.
Incumbent Democratic auditor Diana DiZoglio is running for reelection. DiZoglio won 55.1% of the vote in 2022.
All 8 seats on the Massachusetts Governor's Council are up for election. In 2024, Democrats won all 8 seats.
Elections for the upper house of the Massachusetts General Court will be held on November 3, 2026. All 40 Senate seats will be up for election. Democrats retained their supermajority in the chamber in 2024.
Elections for the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court will be held on November 3, 2026. All 160 House of Representatives seats will be up for election. Democrats retained their supermajority in the chamber in 2024.
A record number of ballot questions could be on the ballot. William F. Galvin, the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, certified 11 ballot measures in early January of 2026. The Massachusetts legislature has until May to either implement the proposals, reach a compromise with organizers, or do nothing, allowing organizers to gather more signatures to officially place the measures on the ballot. Legislative leaders have raised concerns about the number of ballot measures, which they claim are often crafted by special interest groups.
A ballot proposal to prohibit any law or zoning ordinance from requiring minimum lot sizes higher than 5,000 square feet may be on the ballot. The proposal would also prohibit local authorities from implementing special permitting requirements to build single-family residences in residential zoning districts. The measure aims to alleviate the high cost of housing in Massachusetts by allowing for more homes to be built.
It has been compared to the rent control proposal, which may also be on the ballot. Organizers for the rent control measure have criticized the lot size measure and vice versa. While both measures aim to alleviate the state's housing crisis, the lot size measure aims to do so by increasing supply while the rent control measure aims to restrict cost.
Municipal organizations have criticized the measure, which would apply to all municipalities in Massachusetts except Boston, for bypassing local control. Organizers for the measure claim that the measure could cause 2,200 to 5,700 homes to be built each year and that 700,000 new buildable lots would be created.
A ballot proposal to re-institute rent control is scheduled to appear on the 2026 Massachusetts ballot. If adopted, it would become one of the strictest rent control measures in the country. Unlike the previous version of rent control, in which individual cities and towns could choose whether or not they wanted to have rent control, this measure would cap rent increases at the rate of inflation, or 5% a year, whichever is lower, across the entire Commonwealth.
A report from the Greater Boston Real Estate Board and the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University found that adoption of the law would trigger a "fiscal tsunami" by wiping out $300 billion from home and property values. This, in turn, would cause a "cascade of effects" by reducing how much municipalities were able to take in property taxes, leading to cuts to services in urban areas and rural areas alike.
As a result of the issue being put on the ballot, funding was pulled for multiple housing projects representing thousands of new units, with funding flowing instead to projects in other states without rent control. In March 2026, National Real Estate Advisors, who had previously invested billions of dollars in Massachusetts over the prior 20 years, announced that they would be stop investing in Massachusetts because of the prospect of rent control returning.
A poll conducted by Suffolk University in November 2025 found 62.6% of all respondents supported capping rent increases, with 30.6% opposed. A poll in February 2026 found 56% in favor and 26% opposed. Governor Maura Healey opposes the ballot measure, saying that if âÂÂyou look at the studies, you effectively halt productionâ with rent control.