Donald Trump called on Republican voters to back Geoff Diehl (R), his choice for governor in Massachusetts, in Tuesday’s GOP primary, Newsweek reports.
Said Trump: “Geoff is a proven fighter who successfully pushes back on the ultra liberal extremists, and who has driven them a little bit wild too because they can’t figure him out, and he’ll rule your state with an iron fist and he’ll do what has to be done.”
Philip Bump: Trump leans into his authoritarian instincts.
“The Massachusetts Democratic primary for governor is over,” Politico reports.
“State Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz, the last remaining Democrat running against frontrunner and state Attorney General Maura Healey, ended her campaign for governor on Thursday, one year to the day after she launched her bid.”
“Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R), the Republican who maintained the enduring support of his blue state constituents through boom times, the Trump presidency, and the COVID-19 pandemic, is telling allies he will not seek a third term in 2022,” the Boston Globe reports.
“With less than a year before Election Day, Baker’s choice leaves the race wide open, and it may make way for many more major candidates than the three Democrats and one Republican who have already jumped into the gubernatorial race.”
Boston Globe: “The question — and it’s the question in Massachusetts politics — of whether Baker runs in 2022 remains the preeminent force in a race he’s yet to even join, keeping donors sidelined, activists guessing, and worried Democrats game-planning.”
“Baker himself has called the decision a ‘very complicated’ mix of personal and professional considerations, saying this week that he’s weighing, among other things, whether he has ‘something productive and helpful to say’ in what would be his fourth run at the governor’s office after successful runs in 2018 and 2014, and a failed bid to unseat Deval Patrick in 2010.”
Former Massachusetts state Rep. Geoff Diehl (R), who challenged Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in 2018, announced that he is running for governor, making him the first Republican to enter the race, the Boston Globe reports.
Diehl’s bid sets up a possible primary faceoff with Gov. Charlie Baker (R), who has not definitively said whether he will seek a third term. If Baker stays out of the race, many expect Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito (R) would seek the Republican nomination.
“Fresh off a trip to Tennessee for Republican Governors Association meetings, Gov. Charlie Baker (R-MA) is still not yet saying if he’ll run for re-election in 2022,” Mass Live reports.
“Earlier this week, people close to Baker told the News Service his re-engagement with the RGA could be a sign that he is leaning in the direction of running for a third term but that he had yet to share a final decision with top aides.”
Rep. Joseph Kennedy III (D-MA) told the Boston Herald that he’s having “conversations” with people in Joe Biden’s orbit as he mulls life after losing a U.S. Senate primary.
But he doesn’t want to run for governor in 2022: “I cannot imagine a reality where I am a candidate for office again anytime soon. Having just done that for a year, taking a breather from that and refocusing my time and space I think is what I’m looking forward to doing over the course of the immediate timeline.”
“Acknowledging he may seek a groundbreaking third term, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) is quietly putting together a robust staff of political aides, proven fund-raisers, and seasoned consultants who worked on his previous two victorious campaigns, including last year’s landslide reelection,” the Boston Globe reports.
“Baker and his advisers said they are keeping his political organization intact to allow him to consider a third consecutive four-year term in 2022 — something no Massachusetts incumbent governor has ever done — but that no decision has been made.”
A new UMass Lowell/Boston Globe poll in Massachusetts finds Gov. Charlie Baker (R) leading Jay Gonzalez (D) by a stunning 39 points among likely voters, 66% to 27%.
In the U.S. Senate race, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) leads her Geoff Diehl (R), 56% to 31%.
A new Suffolk University poll in Massachusetts finds Gov. Charlie Baker (R) with a 27-point lead over challenger Jay Gonzalez (D), 55% to 28%.
In the U.S. Senate race, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) holds an even larger gap over her challenger, Geoff Diehl (R), 54% to 24%.
Said pollster David Paleologos: “What is fascinating about this poll is that Baker’s and Warren’s path to dominating their races are so different. Warren is using the traditional path of being popular within her party and getting just enough independents, whereas Baker has even numbers across every category, even the opposing party. One is a partisan, and one is a moderate, and they end up at the same spot.”
A new WBUR poll in Massachusetts finds Gov. Charlie Baker (R) crushing each of his possible Democratic opponents for governor.
Baker leads Jay Gonzales 60% to 21%, tops Bob Massie 59% to 22% and beats Setii Warren 58% to 24%.
Boston Globe: “The major problem for the Democratic candidates is the perception that Baker, with his consistently high standing in the surveys and a never-before-seen fund-raising juggernaut, is hugely favored for reelection. Between Baker and his No. 2, Karyn Polito, the yet-to-be-formally-announced campaign has already raised more than $10.5 million.”
“For those counting along at home, that means the incumbent has 61 times the combined war chests of his Democratic opponents.”
Politico: “Donald Trump got crushed by Hillary Clinton in Massachusetts. And after his first year in office, polls show the president is now even less popular here.”
“Trump’s rock-bottom ratings should be dragging Republican Gov. Charlie Baker to defeat in 2018. Instead, the opposite is occurring. Baker is not only more popular than any other politician in solidly Democratic Massachusetts, he’s the most popular governor in the nation.”
“His defiance of the laws of political gravity is proving maddening to opponents who once viewed him as a certain one-termer. And it offers a ray of hope to the handful of other Republican governors facing blue-state electorates in November with the prospect of an unpopular president in the background.”
A new WBUR poll finds that 74% of Massachusetts voters approve of the job Gov. Charlie Baker (R) is doing.
It’s a much different story for President Trump, who remains strikingly unpopular in the state: Just 29% of voters approve of the job he’s doing.
A new WBUR poll in Massachusetts finds that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Gov. Charlie Baker (R) both retain wide leads over challengers who are struggling to gain broad public attention.
Key finding: “All of Elizabeth Warren and Baker’s current challengers suffer from a lack of name recognition; for each of the seven, most voters polled had never heard of them.”
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) “is quietly constructing a massive and historically expensive reelection machine, relying on unique fund-raising methods to shatter records and asserting control of the state Republican apparatus,” the Boston Globe reports.
Massachusetts Gov.-elect Charlie Baker (R) told the Boston Globe that he “plans to eschew the national Republican Party, distancing himself from the GOP just days after it swept the political landscape and declining to show support for any of his party’s prospective standard-bearers in two years.”
Said Baker: “I have no thoughts about that. I don’t view myself as a national anything. I would hope that one of the lessons that some of the Republicans nationally would take from this race is that it’s a good idea to chase 100 percent of the vote and to make the case in as many forums and as many places as they possibly can.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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