Kim Córdova, “Three Ballot Questions that Could Affect the Arts This November,” Boston Art Review, October 19, 2026.

“No [on 3]: Jonathan Cohn, the policy director of Progressive Massachusetts, says private equity executives provided 71 percent of the funding for the pro–Question 3 campaign. He argues that running twice raises costs and favors well-funded candidates. He also says the system pressures candidates in crowded fields to drop out early, and lets any group of fifty people get its endorsements printed on the ballot.”

“No [on 5]: Cohn of Progressive Massachusetts cites an estimate from the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center of about $2 billion in lost revenue per year, just as federal cuts are set to hit next year. He argues this would drain rainy-day reserves and lead to cuts in arts and culture spending, as well as the programs creative workers depend on.”

Yawu Miller, “‘The results were all over the map’: Lots of challengers, few successes in primary,” The Flip Side, September 8, 2026.

“This election had different narratives depending on where you were,” said Progressive Massachusetts Policy Director Jonathan Cohn.

……

Cohn said the primary election results across Massachusetts bode well for progressives.

“There are definitely races where you could say a progressive message with a good ground game won,” he said.

Kelly Garrity, “Yu who? Meet the progressive who pulled off a Boston-area upset,” Boston Globe, September 4, 2026.

“People outside the district didn’t know what was happening,” said Rob Orthman, a Yu backer and co-director of Progressive West Roxbury/Roslindale. “And we were perfectly fine keeping it that way. We did not want to raise attention to this to suddenly start seeing, you know, all the money and support for the incumbent start to flow in.”

Yu, a Boston Public Schools parent and mother of two, had been active on Boston’s Ward 18 Democratic Committee, but first popped up on Orthman’s radar last spring, he said, as she met with progressive groups around the district to test the waters on a potential state Senate bid.

A consumer protection attorney, “she always likes to say[that] she’s sued the last few presidential administrations on behalf of student loan borrowers, both Democratic and Republican,” Orthman said.

Freddy Brewster, “The Corporate Dem Asking Super PACs To Call Him A Progressive,” The Lever, August 28, 2026.

“These campaign donations and Moulton’s voting record make him unfit to call himself a progressive, said Jonathan Cohn, policy director with the statewide grassroots organization Progressive Mass.

“Seth has done a fascinating job of trying to rebrand himself as progressive this cycle,” Cohn told The Lever. “[Moulton] doesn’t ever really actually hit on the big problem over the past few decades of the Democratic Party’s movement away from thinking about how the government can positively intervene to improve people’s everyday lives.”

Cohn said that progressive candidates need to support core issues at the center of the progressive movement, like taxing the rich and providing universal public services, such as Medicare for All.”