How Did Housing Costs Affect the Last Presidential Election in Boston?

As a city that tends to vote predominantly blue in a state that follows the same trend, the election results in Boston are easy to predict. Most likely, Boston and Massachusetts as a whole will once again overwhelmingly vote for the Democratic candidate in the upcoming election. However, some neighborhoods tend to have more turnout for the Republican party than others — and based on our data, there may be a relationship between rent price and political party. 

With the 2024 American Presidential Election coming up, we wanted to look back at the last election and learn more about how Boston votes on a neighborhood level using election data from the City of Boston. Read on for our findings on the relationships between median rent prices and voter registration, voter turnout, and political party affiliation.

To learn more about how we created this study, read our full methodology at the bottom of the page.

In 2020, Jamaica Plain had the highest number of Democratic voters per capita; for every 100 people that live in JP, roughly 62 voted blue. Of those same 100 people, only around 4 voted for the incumbent candidate, Donald Trump. In total, of the 14,426 votes casted in J.P. in 2020, 13,171 (or 91.3%) were for President Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate, and 944 (or 6.54%) were for President Trump. This represents just under 29% of the population and just under 66% of those who are registered to vote; the rest of J.P.’s residents did not cast a vote in the election.

Generally, neighborhoods with median one-bedroom rent prices at or below the citywide median tended to have higher percentages of their total votes casted for the Democratic Party. Of the 7 neighborhoods where 85% or more votes casted were for President Biden, 6 had median asking rent prices at or below the citywide median (around $2,300 at the time). Back Bay, consistently one of the priciest neighborhoods in the city, was an exception — with just under 87% of its votes being casted for the Democratic Party, making it the neighborhood with the fourth highest percentage of voters going blue.

West Roxbury, one of the only neighborhoods in Boston made up of more homeowners than renters, had the largest turnout of Republican voters per capita in Boston in 2020. For every 100 residents, around 20 voted red. However, it’s important to note that the neighborhood was still majority Democratic — with 55 of every 100 residents going to the polls to vote blue.

When looking at percentages, the Seaport, South Boston, and West Roxbury all had around 25% of their total votes casted for the Republican candidate.

It’s worth noting that nearly every neighborhood with 20% or more of its votes casted toward the Republican candidate also had a median one-bedroom apartment rent price higher than the citywide median. Only East Boston, where the median asking price was roughly $2,000 a month, bucked the trend. The Seaport had the highest median asking rent price for a one-bedroom (around $3,800 a month) and South Boston had the third highest (around $3,500 a month).

We measured voter turnout in two different ways: the percentage of the total population that turned out on election day and the percentage of total registered voters that went to the polls to cast their votes.

When looking at total population, West Roxbury had the highest percentage of its residents showing up to vote at just under 77%. Roslindale (71%), Jamaica Plain (68%), Charlestown (68%), and the Seaport (67%) had the next highest turnouts of their population. As far as registered voter turnout goes, the same five neighborhoods had the highest percentages — with West Roxbury at No. 1 again.

When looking at what neighborhoods had the lowest population turnout, it was split between the neighborhoods with the highest median rent prices and those with the lowest housing prices. Of the 4 neighborhoods that had less than 40% of their population voting, two had median prices well below the median (Allston and Brighton) and two had higher prices (Back Bay and the Fenway). The South End, one of the only neighborhoods where the median price for a one-bedroom was over $3,000, only had a slightly higher turnout at 42%.

As far as registered voter turnout goes, the three neighborhoods that saw 65% or less of their registered voters actually casting their vote all had median rents at or below $1,900 a month. In general, more neighborhoods with high costs of renting saw high registered voter turnout in 2020.

Below is the full breakdown of Boston neighborhoods that we looked at, their median rent prices, their percentage of Democratic and Republican voters, and their voter turnout numbers. 

For this study, ApartmentAdvisor analyzed public election and voter registration data from the 2020 presidential election as well as listings available on its platform across 20 Boston neighborhoods for which there was sufficient data. To determine which neighborhoods had the highest density of Republican and Democratic voters, ApartmentAdvisor used population data from the U.S. Census to calculate votes casted for each party per capita. Note: Rent data came from October 2021.