Donald Trump is poised to romp across the South on Super Tuesday, cementing a hold on the Republican presidential nomination. But it's little-watched and deeply liberal Massachusetts that's sending shivers down Democrats’ spines.

Massachusetts, they fear, is where Trump could chart a course to the White House.


The state — the largest non-Southern prize on the GOP calendar next week — is packed with the independent, blue-collar voters that will decide key general election states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. And if Trump can trounce his Republicans rivals by pulling in those voters in Massachusetts on Tuesday, Democrats are afraid he could do the same to them nationwide in November.

"It’d be like the canary in the coal mine," said Doug Rubin, a Democratic strategist who helped steer Deval Patrick and Elizabeth Warren to statewide victories in Massachusetts. "If Trump is able to convince a lot of moderate-to-conservative independents to vote in the primary and he does really well here, that would be a warning sign for Democrats going forward."

Massachusetts is a bastion of Democratic power — and a virtual lock to go to the Democratic nominee in the general election — but it also has a deeply moderate streak that has enabled Republicans like Mitt Romney and Scott Brown to prevail in statewide contests. Their coalitions depended on wresting support from independent voters and the pockets of Reagan Democrats in industrial cities like Lowell, Quincy and Fall River. Rubin said sharply increased turnout in those cities, coupled with a blowout victory for Trump, would be a worrisome sign for Democrats.

"If he can do something big in Massachusetts and do something with people who don’t normally come out at all, if they come out for Trump, it says something enormous about the country," added Sean Curran, a longtime Democratic fundraiser. "This is a bellwether for states that tend to be purple, if not blue, that there is some kind of vitality to his candidacy there for a general election. It would be a very, very unnerving thing."

Trump's made no secret he's targeting these voters. His high-decibel critique of U.S. trade policies, an emphasis on returning manufacturing jobs to the country, his relentlessly harsh tone on illegal immigration and his recently professed love of the "poorly educated" constitute a pitch tailor-made for these disaffected independent-minded voters who have felt the brunt of an uneven economy. In a phone interview, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said these voters could help him "expand the electoral map" in a general election, competing in states long out of reach for Republicans.

Recent polling suggests Trump is headed for a resounding victory in Massachusetts on Tuesday. A WBUR/MassInc poll out Friday morning puts Trump at 40 percent among likely GOP primary voters — far ahead of John Kasich and Marco Rubio’s 19 percent apiece. Among independents who are likely to vote in the GOP primary, Trump does even better, pulling in 42 percent. His favorability among likely voters with a high school diploma but no further education is a stratospheric 83 percent.

Brown, who endorsed Trump earlier this month, said Trump's potential to pick up independents mirrors his own. "He’s starting to have a broader appeal," he said.

Ryan Williams, a longtime Romney adviser, noted that Brown prevailed in Massachusetts despite a hard-line approach on immigration. "He did appeal to blue-collar Democrats who want strong borders, who don’t agree with some of the Democrats on that issue," Williams said.

Even Democrats who doubt Trump concede he could make inroads with these voters.

"I assume we’re going to lose some working class, white registered Democrats in relatively — not an insignificant amount," said former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.

But Rendell argued that the policies and persona that make him attractive to those voters — including his divisive rhetoric toward immigrants, minorities and women — will turn off moderates in droves. "My belief is for every one of those blue-collar white working-class workers that he gets to vote for him, we will get two suburban Republican moderates," he said.

And Democrats will work to drive a wedge between Trump and working-class white voters, even if his Republican rivals have failed to do so thus far.

Williams predicted that Democrats are waiting for Trump to capture the nomination to unleash an assault on Trump's business record designed to undermine his standing with blue-collar white voters and union employees. "I guarantee you that is coming the minute Trump becomes the nominee," he said. "They’re going to go through every lawsuit that they have, all the creditors who he screwed and ruined their lives."

Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis said his state's Republican Party has swung hard to the right in recent years, leaving a smaller husk of conservatives deciding the primary. "Many of the moderate Republicans with whom I worked during my time in the Statehouse have left the party. I don't think the GOP results in Massachusetts will tell us much," he said, adding that he doubts there will be much independent support for Trump.

But in contests so far, Trump has dominated among moderate and independent voters who cast ballots in Republican primaries and caucuses, and a resounding Trump win among Massachusetts independent voters would be hard to ignore. More than half of the state's 4 million registered voters last year were unaffiliated with either party.

"You’re looking at a state where independents outnumber Democrats and Republicans combined," said Jim Roosevelt, a prominent Massachusetts Democratic activist and grandson of Franklin D. Roosevelt. "I think appeal to independents in Massachusetts will be an important gauge as to how seriously we take him in November."

Veteran Massachusetts Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh said all Democrats should watch Massachusetts because “it shows you that this is going to be a far tougher [general election] fight than most people thought.”

“I expect this race to be 2000-like close,” she said. “A lot of voters are split between Trump and [Democrat Bernie] Sanders. They agree on the problems. The only thing they’re debating is who has the better approach.”

A Trump win in Massachusetts, where he's dominating sparse polls, would also be a back-breaker for Kasich. The Ohio governor has staked his campaign on Super Tuesday wins in Massachusetts and neighboring Vermont, a life raft he’s hoping will carry him to his Midwest comfort zone (Michigan votes on March 8 and Ohio on March 15). Kasich began running TV and digital ads in Massachusetts Wednesday to try and chip away at Trump's advantage. His super PAC is on the air in both New England states too.

But operatives on both sides of the aisle are already writing off the state’s primary as a runaway win for Trump. They note that he packed the 7,800-seat Tsongas Arena (named for U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas, a Democrat) in Lowell last month.

The Boston Globe, which endorsed Kasich ahead of New Hampshire's Feb. 9 primary, issued a desperate plea for independent Massachusetts voters to "stop Donald Trump" in a Monday editorial . "The Globe has endorsed John Kasich , the highly qualified govenor of Ohio, and urges unenrolled voters to cast a Republican ballot for him instead of voting in the Democratic primary on the same day," the paper's left-leaning editorial board wrote.

One fear among Democrats is that a Trump win among Massachusetts independents would also create a perception advantage for him. "Trump would love to blow out Massachusetts to say he can win here as Reagan did in '80 and '84," said Scott Ferson, a veteran Democratic consultant who helped elected freshman Rep. Seth Moulton in 2014. "And because of our moderate reputation, it would certainly help his momentum. This should be a perfect Rubio or Kasich state."

Democrats outside Massachusetts will be watching too. Dennis Eckart, a former Ohio congressman, said allies in his state should be paying attention.

"Massachusetts poses a real clear yardstick against which you can measure Trump’s appeal in the fall," he said.

Eckart, 65, also sees worrisome parallels between Trump’s rise and Reagan’s.

"I am old enough to remember the glee that many Democrats had in 1980 that the Republicans were going to nominate this actor and how easy it would be against him" he said. "It is a mistake to think or to have as a premise that because this guy plays by no rules known to other politicians ... that therefore makes him vulnerable in the process. We aren’t playing by any known rules now."

