Gov contenders make last appeals
Incumbent touts record; Gonzalez ties Baker to Trump
Gubernatorial challenger Jay Gonzalez didn’t pass up a chance to take a shot at Gov. Charlie Baker yesterday, trying again to tie the moderate incumbent to President Trump, while the governor, for his part, was happy to point to his record and earned praise from the other side of the aisle.
“In this national context that we’re living in with Donald Trump and his hateful and divisive policies, it is really important that we have leaders here at the state level who are standing up to that and fighting back against it,” Gonzalez said at a canvass event in Worcester. “We don’t have that in Charlie Baker.”
Gov. Charlie Baker stuck to his track record at a campaign rally in Hyde Park yesterday, pointing to the 200,000 jobs his administration added during their first term.
“The commonwealth’s heading in the right direction. We have more people working than any time in state history,” Baker said. “We set a tone where people really do believe that we are trying to do what’s best for the people of Massachusetts and not just playing games and party politics.”
Democrats including City Councilman Tim McCarthy and state Rep. Angelo Scaccia sang Baker’s praises at the rally.
“This gentleman (Baker) and this lady (Polito) have brought the people of the commonwealth together,” Scaccia said. “It is crazy out there politically. People from the far-left and the far- right are unreasonable. Yet, he, in the middle, has brought everyone together.”
Baker said the kind words from members of the other side of the aisle are a reflection of the bipartisanship that he and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito have integrated into their governing.
“We’ve tried very hard as an administration not to let partisanship get in the way of moving communities and neighborhoods forward,” Baker said. “If you look at our team, there’s a lot of Democrats, Republicans and independents working in our administration because at the end of the day, this is supposed to be about the work and not what I would call the sidebar stuff.”
Both candidates have a network of volunteers who will continue working to reach voters through Election Day.
Baker and Polito will meet with voters in Lowell today, followed by a rally in Baker’s hometown of Swampscott. Baker will vote in his hometown tomorrow morning and work polling places.
Gonzalez is greeting voters today at the MBTA’s Riverside Station and Park Street. He has stops in communities including Cambridge, Somerville and Chelsea, and an election eve rally in Waltham with Maura Healey and Ayanna Pressley. Gonzalez will vote tomorrow at The Center at the Heights in Needham at 7:15 a.m., and make a series of Election Day stops across the state.