A campaign to abolish party primaries in Massachusetts has drawn millions of dollars from private equity and venture capital executives, making it the best-funded question of the nine going before voters in November, according to state campaign finance records.
The committee behind the measure, the Coalition for Healthy Democracy, has raised more than $5.6 million since last year, more than any of the 20 other ballot question committees organized this cycle. Nearly $500,000 of that came from donors who identified themselves as working for Bain Capital, and another $250,000 from people at Berkshire Partners beyond David Peeler, a senior adviser at the firm who has given more than $1 million since 2025.
Other large gifts came from Andrew Balson, a former Bain executive who is now managing partner at Cove Hill Partners, with nearly $800,000, and Mark Nunnelly, another Bain alumnus, with about half a million dollars, according to the Boston Globe. Paul Sagan, an adviser at General Catalyst Partners, gave $200,000, and Adam Koppel, a partner at Bain Capital, and Paul Edgerley, a senior adviser at the firm, gave $100,000 each. None of the committee’s top donors responded to requests for comment sent to them or their firms, including spokespeople for Bain.
The proposal would end party primaries for state elections and instead list every candidate, regardless of party, on a single primary ballot. Voters would pick one candidate and the top two finishers would advance to the general election. Supporters say the change would move control of ballot access from the Democratic and Republican party organizations to voters and bring more competition to a state with few contested elections, especially for the Legislature.
Danielle Allen, a Harvard University professor and former gubernatorial candidate who leads the campaign, said the investment-world money came through “social relationships” she has built in the democracy reform movement. “I’ve got a fair amount of experience organizing, and you do what an organizer does: You ask your friends to ask friends, and you keep snowballing out,” she said. “I have been a bulldog.” Ms. Allen said she worked on the cause for five years and at first funded it from her retirement account, giving $80,000 in September 2023 to a now-defunct committee tied to the measure.
Opponents argue that ending partisan primaries would open state elections to wealthy donors spending on their own bids or chosen candidates, and some warn it could shut third-party and independent candidates out of the general election while further weakening Republicans, who hold no statewide office and form a super-minority in the Legislature. The leaders of both major parties oppose the measure, and it has divided Democrats.
Jordan Berg Powers, the chairman of the union-backed committee fighting the question, called the donors’ money a “big play to upend the system to really benefit themselves.” “You look around the country, and you’re a private equity person, what are you worried about? You’re worried about populism from both the left and the right,” he said. “They have an interest in having politicians and a system that privileges their money.”
The national evidence on the point is thin. Christian Grose, a University of Southern California political science professor who has studied his state’s top-two system since it took effect in 2012, said the role of money in California elections is not “any more or less than closed primary systems.” “There’s lots of money in politics,” he said.
Ms. Allen made a local case of her own, pointing to Boston’s nonpartisan preliminary election. “If this kind of system advantaged money, then Josh Kraft would be mayor of Boston,” she said, referring to Mr. Kraft’s failed 2025 challenge to Mayor Michelle Wu, a race in which he reported spending more than $6.6 million.
Several of the donors have given heavily to past ballot fights that cut across ideological lines. Mr. Nunnelly gave $275,000, while working in former Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration, to the unsuccessful 2016 campaign to lift the state’s charter school cap; Mr. Balson gave hundreds of thousands to the same effort and at least $200,000 to the failed 2020 ranked-choice voting question, and in 2021 he gave $250,000 to a super PAC backing Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s unsuccessful run for Boston mayor. Mr. Peeler gave at least $75,000 to the charter campaign and $50,000 to the ranked-choice effort, and last year gave at least $500,000 to American Promise, a Concord-based nonprofit that works to limit money in politics.
Nathan Lockwood, chief of staff at Voter Choice Massachusetts, a nonprofit that backed the 2020 question, said Mr. Peeler holds “progressive values and a pragmatic mind” and has devoted “a massive portion of his time and attention” to the state, often against the wishes of colleagues who “would prefer he focus only on ‘other states that need it more.’”
Ballot campaigns cost real money: signatures must be gathered, language drafted by lawyers, staff hired, ads bought. Adam Webster, a Democratic political consultant in Massachusetts who is not working on either side, said the wealth behind the committee feeds the fear that the new system would reward whoever has the most. “This,” he said of the question, “is really a way to subvert the ‘small-d’ democratic grass-roots campaign process where candidates need to meet and greet voters, local elected officials, activists.”