Massachusetts Democrats are making their playbook for countering Republican candidates for governor clear — attempt at each alternative to persuade voters that the conservative contenders are an inroad for President Donald Trump’s insurance policies to reach within the Bay State.
However Gov. Maura Healey, a first-term Democrat from Arlington who’s in search of reelection, isn’t the one manning the messaging, at the very least for now.
As an alternative, Healey’s marketing campaign referred the Herald to an announcement from the Massachusetts Democratic Get together when requested for response to Mike Kennealy, a former housing and financial growth cupboard secretary underneath Gov. Charlie Baker, launching a Republican bid for governor this previous week.
“Thanks for reaching out. We can refer you to the MassDems statement on this issue,” a spokesperson for the agency that handles Healey’s marketing campaign communications mentioned.
High brass at MassDems wasted no time in slamming Kennealy of their opening assertion — Chair Steve Kerrigan instantly linked him to Trump — and in subsequent emails to supporters
In a single e mail blast Thursday afternoon, the Massachusetts Democratic Get together requested followers to signal a petition telling Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll that “we’re ready to stand up against MAGA Mike’s agenda and re-elect Team Healey/Driscoll.”
“We reject the toxic Trump/Musk agenda and everything it stands for. We reject its hatred and division. We reject its prioritizing of billionaire oligarchs over the American people,” the e-mail mentioned. “But MAGA Mike Kennealy thinks this destructive ideology is what’s best for the Bay State. He wants to govern our state with the same recklessness and disregard for everyday folks that has been so typical of this second Trump administration.”
Rob Grey, a veteran political strategist who labored on campaigns for former Gov. Charlie Baker and Mitt Romney, instructed the Herald that it is going to be laborious to assault candidates who have been a part of the Baker administration as “Trump robots.”
“But given Trump’s popularity in Massachusetts, I certainly expect the Democrats to try. And, they’d rather do that than defend the Healey record on spending and taxes,” he mentioned. “Will it stick? I doubt it. But I mean, right now, if you look at the history of midterm elections and the history of Trump’s numbers in Massachusetts, it’s a pretty decent bet that Trump will be an anchor for Republican candidates here.”
As for Healey herself, up to now, the messaging is barely about her time in workplace.
When requested about Kennealy this previous week, Healey mentioned she seems “forward to making my case over the course of a campaign about the record of the last two years, which has been a record about delivering results, cutting taxes and lowering costs for people, building more housing, investing in infrastructure, working to fix a broken transportation system.”
“One of the reasons I want to run for re-election is because we have done a lot, and there is so much more left to do, and I want to continue to be able to do that, day in and day out, because I see what’s possible in the state,” she mentioned.
Home Speaker Ron Mariano displays on Milton’s designation as an MBTA neighborhood…
Home Speaker Ron Mariano thinks the courts obtained it mistaken on Milton’s battle to exclude itself from a controversial, transit-oriented housing regulation.
The MBTA Communities Act, which former Gov. Charlie Baker signed into regulation in 2021, has set off a firestorm in Massachusetts amongst native cities and cities who’re grappling with whether or not to adjust to a regulation that requires them to zone at the very least one district close to a transit hub for multi-family housing.
Milton, which has the Mattapan Trolley, determined to buck the regulation, a choice that finally discovered its approach to the state’s highest courtroom the place a choose dominated that cities and cities can not decide themselves out of the zoning statute.
However for some native officers from the city, the Mattapan Trolley mustn’t have fallen underneath the “rapid transit” classification within the regulation that then required them to zone for multi-family housing close to a transit hub.
Mariano apparently agrees with that evaluation.
Throughout an look on the Higher Boston Chamber of Commerce this previous week, the Quincy Democrat mentioned he thought Milton “had a legitimate complaint being included in the coverage of the bill as an MBTA community.”
“All they got is this crazy little trolley car. They don’t have a train. They don’t have bus access,” he later instructed reporters. “But then, once they stood up, and before the court thing was decided, you had all these other towns come out of the woodwork, and you got to see what they put in to be covered by the mandate.”
Gov. Maura Healey and Lawyer Basic Andrea Campbell have aggressively gone after any metropolis or city that has voted to not adjust to the regulation, together with by withholding grant {dollars} and submitting courtroom actions.
Mariano isn’t a choose by any means — one thing he acknowledged a number of occasions this previous week — however his feedback present that some Democrats on Beacon Hill are nonetheless contemplating what constitutes a fast transit neighborhood.
Even with Mariano’s admission, he instructed reporters that he’s not planning to carry ahead laws that will carve out Milton, or some other municipality, from the MBTA Communities Act.
He additionally mentioned that cities and cities ought to comply.
“I think that we need these cities and towns to make a commitment because if they don’t, if they continue to try and exploit any loophole that they can find, we will never hit our target (housing) rate,” he mentioned.
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