By Hallie Claflin, Chris Lisinski, and Jordan Wolman
For all of the money wealthy donors from private equity and the investment world have splashed on changing how Massachusetts elections work, Question 3 is, at least for now, no longer the most expensive ballot question.
An early-October burst of spending by opponents of an attempt to eliminate the recreational marijuana industry has pushed the total amount spent on that measure (Question 8) to nearly $6.5 million. That’s a good chunk more than the $5.9 million spent for and against the all-party primary question so far.
Facing the prospect of their business being deemed illegal, the marijuana industry has mustered the financial cavalry. Opponents have already spent more than $2.8 million urging voters to reject the measure, more than twice as much as both sides have spent arguing their cases for whether to keep or spike a 2024 gun control law.
The campaign pushing the anti-pot question is far more centralized. More than $3.7 million so far, almost all of the money behind the effort, came from a single source: SAM Action Inc., a Virginia-based nonprofit that exists primarily to oppose the recreational marijuana industry.
That’s nearly twice as much as any other entity has put behind a single Massachusetts question this cycle. The second-largest contributor so far is the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance, a coalition of business groups that has so far provided $1.9 million in in-kind contributions, mostly to kick-start the campaign to overhaul the state’s tax cap and rebate formula.
Altogether, campaigns supporting or opposing the nine statewide questions on the ballot spent more than $25 million, including in-kind contributions, through October 15, the end of the most recent reporting period. The total is still well short of the record $70 million spent on the four questions on the ballot in 2022, but spending tends to be backloaded heavily to the weeks immediately before the election, so it’s still possible 2026 breaks into new territory.’
This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
