Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from WBUR’s politics newsletter, Mass. Politics. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.

Welcome back to Mass. Politics, where we enjoy focusing on the local, down to the precinct level. In this edition: Michelle Wu, Daniel Schlozman, Danielle Allen, and more.

What do Massachusetts mayors think of Question 3?

Municipal elections in Massachusetts tend to focus more on service delivery than political party affiliation. That’s in no small part due to how the races, and the jobs, are structured: The top two finishers in a preliminary — not a party primary — advance to the final election. It was the result of reforms from the Progressive era of politics from more than 100 years ago.

Now, one of the nine questions on this fall’s crowded ballot proposes a similar setup for state elections, too.

The Question 3 campaign, led by Harvard University professor (and 2022 gubernatorial candidate) Danielle Allen, is asking voters to adopt the preliminary-style system for statewide offices like governor, U.S. Senate and House races, and Massachusetts’ notoriously uncompetitive legislative contests. If passed, Question 3 would jettison party-specific primaries, and create an “everybody in the pool” open primary, with the top two vote-getters moving on.

Allen’s bipartisan coalition includes Deval Patrick and Kerry Healey, former rivals who faced off against each other for governor in 2006 after winning their respective party primaries. And interestingly, Allen has pulled in a growing number of mayors who’ve witnessed top-two elections up close.

In recent days, a handful of mayors — including Medford’s Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Malden’s Gary Christenson and Chicopee’s John Vieau — joined the “Yes on 3” camp. The group already included New Bedford’s Jon Mitchell and Fitchburg’s Samantha Squailia. At least 10 of the state’s 46 publicly elected mayors have now backed Question 3, according to the campaign.

Meanwhile, opponents of Question 3 officially have just two mayors in their ranks: Somerville’s Jake Wilson and Gardner’s Michael Nicholson.

Noting that Medford already has top-two elections, Lungo-Koehn said in a statement that passing Question 3 would “bring more competition, broader voter participation, and more accountability to elections across Massachusetts.”

Westfield’s Michael McCabe called it a “practical reform,” which will allow “the two candidates with the most support to move on to November, just like we do in our cities.”

But Daniel Schlozman, a political scientist like Allen, isn’t sold on the concept.

“It is very tempting to say this electoral system worked for me, and it is therefore good,” the Johns Hopkins University professor said of the mayors. “It is simply a different story to be elected in your small city whose divides do not meet up with national politics.”

In a top-two system, it’s less clear to voters what and who they are being asked to choose in a multi-candidate field, Schlozman argued. In other words, in a political primary system, party affiliation can act as a shorthand for a candidate’s values and positions, and losing that could leave voters with more to sort through. (It’s worth noting that party affiliations — and additionally, party endorsements — would still be displayed on the ballot if Question 3 passes.)

Question 3 opponents — which include top officials in the Democratic and Republican state parties — are seizing on California and Washington state as examples, arguing the system is a boon to candidates who can self-fund and crowd out others.

While Americans throughout history have expressed ambivalence about political parties, they’ve also accepted that parties are how U.S. democracy is organized, Schlozman said.

“Organized politics gives a coherence to elites who are playing the game so they understand the rules they are playing, and coherence to voters where they understand in both the primary and the general election what the choices are before them,” he said.

Allen, the main backer of Question 3, has argued this move would give “insiders” “less control and we get fresh voices running for office.”

Municipal elections also aren’t completely divorced from party politics. When he first ran for mayor in a 12-person preliminary field in 2013, Marty Walsh prominently placed “Democrat” on his campaign signs as a signal to voters. So did Josh Kraft, the son of New England Patriots owner (and Donald Trump supporter) Robert Kraft, when he unsuccessfully challenged Boston Mayor Michelle Wu in 2025.

Wu told WBUR she is still weighing how she plans to vote — not just on Question 3, but like many voters, on all nine ballot questions.

Because the world of Massachusetts politics can be compared to a small town in the Berkshires, Schlozman has known Wu for years. (They both went to Harvard and shared an interest in local politics.) In 2024, she even hosted a talk on the book he co-authored, “The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics.”

Schlozman declined to delve into their conversations about Question 3. “She knows my views,” he quipped.

Are you still weighing your vote on Question 3? Let me know your thoughts: gin@bu.edu.