The GOP’s Mike Kennealy is polling forward of his two rivals within the race in opposition to Gov. Maura Healey in subsequent yr’s election, nevertheless it’s too early to take a victory lap with many citizens nonetheless on the sidelines.
Kennealy holds 44% of the vote over major opponents Brian Shortsleeve and Mike Minogue, each sitting at 13%. Greater than half of the would-be Republican or Impartial voters within the ballot, nonetheless, mentioned they don’t know sufficient in regards to the candidates to select a facet.
The Kennealy marketing campaign is celebrating the UMass ballot, launched this week, as Shortsleeve questions the survey’s credibility, and Minogue factors to donations as a stronger indicator of how Bay State Republicans are leaning a yr out from the election.
UMass pollsters surveyed 800 respondents, with 416 Democrats and 183 Republicans or pure independents. Healey, the Democrat incumbent, leads every of the three GOP candidates by at the very least 21%.
“This poll confirms what we have been hearing in every corner of the Commonwealth: voters recognize that Mike Kennealy is the only candidate prepared to take on Maura Healey in 2026 and deliver real results,” Kennealy marketing campaign supervisor Ben Hincher mentioned in an announcement.
“Mike will lower energy costs for Massachusetts families, cut taxes and burdensome regulations, audit the legislature, end sanctuary state policies, restore excellence in our schools, and return common sense to state government.”
Roughly a 3rd of the respondents voting in a preview of the Republican major acknowledged that they had been “not too familiar” with Kennealy, Shortsleeve and Minogue, and 19% “not familiar at all” with the GOP candidates.
Kennealy, a former housing and financial growth secretary in Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration, first entered the race in April. Shortsleeve, a enterprise capitalist who ran the MBTA beneath Baker, adopted behind, saying his marketing campaign in Could.
Minogue, a significant donor to President Trump and former CEO of heart-pump maker Abiomed Inc., jumped into the race final month.
In an electronic mail to supporters, Jim Barnett, normal guide for the Shortsleeve marketing campaign, mentioned the ballot shouldn’t be taken severely. He argued that the survey of Republican and Impartial voters of the GOP candidates lacks credibility, with the rigor being “embarrassingly shallow,” and that the outcomes “should have never been released.”
Barnett instructed that normal election outcomes, which pit Shortsleeve because the closest opponent individually to Healey over Kennealy and Minogue, are “far more credible.”
“Those toplines align with historic partisan margins at this stage of a campaign and other independent polling,” Barnett acknowledged. “In contrast, the ‘Republican primary’ subsample lacks proper screening, weighting, and mathematical coherence, making it unfit for analysis or reporting.”
After Minogue introduced his marketing campaign in October, the South Hamilton resident obtained a $1.8 million first-month haul, practically matching what Kennealy has raised and loaned himself throughout his months-long run for the reason that spring.
Shortsleeve has raised simply over $1 million.
“Mike is incredibly grateful for the support his campaign is seeing across Massachusetts with hundreds of volunteers and twice as many donors as the rest of the Republican field,” a Minogue marketing campaign spokesperson informed the Herald. “In just 21 days, he’s already passing lifetime politicians who’ve been in the race for more than half a year. People are ready for a new kind of leadership focused on accountability, affordability, and opportunity for every family in our state.”
