The sad thing is, while the state legislature is something like 88%D/12%R, the people themselves are more like 60%D/40%R.
Yup, that's what I wrote in post #23.
The ratio for GOPers to Dems in MA have been ludicrously out of whack for several decades. Of course, going way, way back to 1867, the 'Rats held exactly 10 seats out of 240 in the House (this was before they cut the numbers by 1/3rd in 1978 to 160). It took from before the Civil War until 1949 for the 'Rats to finally win a majority, losing it again in 1953, and winning it back again in 1955 (and have never lost it since). From 1953 to 1963, the numbers for the GOP dropped from over 50% to less than 40%, and from 1963 to 1973, dropped to barely above 20%. From 1979 to 1991, we held a paltry 18-24%. Today we stand at only 1 seat above our lowest number of 20 (in 2002), which is 13% (as you can see, in only a decade, the percentage drop was nearly half).
On the Senate side, it was also GOP controlled from before the Civil War (in 1867, all 40 seats in the Senate were Republican) until 1959. In 22 years, from 1957 to 1979, the erosion was just as dramatic, dropping from 21 seats to 6. In the 1990 landslide, the GOP restored its numbers to what they were in 1959 (the last year it was remotely competitive for control of the body), which was 16 out of 40. In only 8 short years (1993-2001), the numbers plummetted from 16 back to 6, where it remains today (just 15%).
It is very conceivable the GOP could be completely shut out of the legislature as they are at the federal level within a decade, as the 'Rats were back in 1867, and become the first major state outside the South in the modern era to have a one-party legislature.