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Massachusetts voters are known to be pragmatic. Despite being one of the most liberal states in the country, Massachusetts has had only one Democratic governor between 1991 and 2022. Yet the state’s Republican Party is anything but pragmatic. Hence the inevitable defeat of Republican Geoff Diehl in the gubernatorial race against Democrat Maura Healey.
For those not from Massachusetts, there are a few things about the state’s political dynamics that need to be understood. First, it is overwhelmingly Democratic — the GOP holds three out of 40 seats in the state senate and 29 of the 160 seats in the state house. Before the midterms, Democrats controlled every statewide office except for the governorship, and now they control that too.
Second, Massachusetts is decidedly socially liberal. It was the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004, an issue for which it records one of the highest levels of support in the nation. In 2020, it passed one of the most permissive abortion bills in the country, allowing abortions beyond 24 weeks. Social conservatism simply won’t win here.
And third, Massachusetts voters are more fiscally conservative than one would expect. In 1980, voters approved Proposition 2½, which limits the local property tax levy increase to 2.5 percent per year. Bay Staters have also historically been very reluctant to change their state’s flat tax system — until Tuesday, when they approved an additional 4 percent tax on incomes over $1 million. Clearly, Bay Staters aren’t Milton Friedman acolytes, but they are willing to restrain taxation and have checks on the more radical impulses of their progressive legislature.
All of this demands a particular breed of Republican. The Massachusetts Republican must be a moderate on social issues — there is just no way around it. He doesn’t have to be a radical: Governor Charlie Baker, who had an astonishing 68 percent approval rating back in October, vetoed the aforementioned abortion legislation (though he was overridden by the legislature). But to openly try to roll back progressive social schemes that are more popular is a one-way ticket to electoral irrelevance. And electoral irrelevance for the GOP means no checks on the Bay State’s leftward march.
Take the issue of abortion. With Maura Healey as governor, there will be nothing standing between the Democrat-dominated General Court (as we call the state legislature) and the enactment of legislation. Healey is fervently pro-abortion, stating she would work with the radical Beyond Roe Coalition (BRC), which, for example, wants to ensure that “Every person — regardless of age — must be able to access the timely reproductive health care [read: abortion] they need without interference or delays from parental consent or judicial bypass.” They also want to make sure that medication abortions are available on college campuses.
For Massachusetts Republicans, economics is the route to success. Moderate fiscal conservatism — a willingness to restrain public spending, keep taxes low, and spend appropriations wisely — is what puts Republicans over the top here. Massachusetts has some of the highest costs of living compared to other states, and energy bills could rise by over 60 percent in the coming months. Sound economics will be key to the state’s future prosperity, and conservatives are the ones who have a competent pedigree in this area.
This brings us to the GOP’s poor showing in Massachusetts’s midterm elections. The party’s candidates in the gubernatorial and secretary of state races — Geoff Diehl and Rayla Campbell respectively — did not have a chance. Diehl touted his endorsement from Trump in the primaries and was wishy-washy on the issue of whether Trump lost the 2020 election. Rayla Campbell chose to run a campaign that was unusually focused on social issues and infused with incendiary rhetoric, generating much public controversy. (Even Diehl criticized Campbell for her vulgar comments at the Massachusetts GOP’s convention.) The results? Democrat Maura Healey won the governorship by about 29 percent and Secretary of State William Galvin won by 38 percent. Contrast that to moderate Republican Charlie Baker, who won his 2018 race by 33 percentage points.
The candidates are not the only ones to blame – Massachusetts GOP’s chairman Jim Lyons has been at the vanguard of the state party’s Trumpian shift. Lyons has also sparred with Baker, saying that he should “reconsider his party affiliation.” Lyons even fought to prevent the GOP’s best hope for attaining statewide office — Anthony Amore, candidate for state auditor — from putting Baker in his photo on the Massachusetts GOP’s website. (Unfortunately, Amore lost his election, though he and GOP candidate for attorney general Jay McMahon performed the best out of all statewide Republicans, each garnering 38 percent of the vote.)
And so Massachusetts Republicans find themselves in a position of utter impotence. The state is under one-party control, and not because the Democrats have done such a great job. It is because the Massachusetts GOP has chosen ideological purity over electability. This election should be a wake-up call for the state’s conservatives: it is time to go with what works, and walk that path Governor Baker so successfully trod. The alternative is the disappearance of the Republican Party in Massachusetts.
