Massachusetts pre-primary FEC roundup

MA-Sen: Never let it be said that Seth Moulton didn’t have enough money to beat Sen. Ed Markey. If he loses, it’s because voters just plain dislike him.

MA-01: The scale of that spending by Rep. Richard Neal is breathtaking, and the vast majority of it came in the wake of a mid-July poll commissioned by the Neal campaign: on July 16, Neal paid for a poll, and on July 21, a frenzy of spending began, tallying at least $790,000 in post-poll ads, mailers, and digital services by mid-August, all disbursed to political consulting firms (namely, an ad buyer, a digital firm, and a mail firm) that Neal’s campaign hadn’t done business with since the fall of 2025 at the latest. That paints a very clear picture of a congressman who didn't like what he saw when he ran that poll in July—and a congressman who might be more scared of high school history teacher Jeromie Whalen than he's letting on.

MA-04: Rep. Jake Auchincloss seems to understand that Jason Poulos is mostly a protest candidate. Unfortunately, I think he’s right.

MA-05: Ditto Katherine Clark with her two challengers, Jonathan Paz and Tarik Samman—though she’s at least spending like she’d like to boost her margin of victory.

MA-06: It’s not hard to see Dan Koh burying the competition in a flood of spending, since he has more left to work with than anyone else by far. Tram Nguyen and John Beccia are probably the only alternatives with the ability to compete now.

MA-08: Stephen Lynch is clearly spooked by Patrick Roath, but unfortunately for the incumbent, Roath is a better fundraiser than him, allowing Roath to keep Lynch from opening up too much of a spending advantage despite Lynch’s much larger preexisting war chest.

MA-09: Another Massachusetts Democrat, another protest candidate—Bill Keating is almost certainly right that he can afford to mostly ignore his primary this year.