Mass. GOP to vote on party leader today
Race between Jim Lyons, Shawn Dooley
Massachusetts Republicans who weathered poor showings in federal races and dwindling numbers on Beacon Hill last year will get the chance today to choose the leader who will usher their party forward into a postTrump era and the 2022 governor’s race.
Jim Lyons, a former state representative from Andover, is seeking re-election to a second two-year term as Massachusetts GOP chairman.
Lyons, a pro-Trump conservative, has closely aligned the state party’s messaging to that of the president — a marked split from moderate Republican Gov. Charlie Baker.
Lyons is being challenged by state Rep. Shawn Dooley of Norfolk, his former colleague who’s calling for a “rebranding” of the party’s messaging from a “reactionary, ‘Democrats are all evil’ philosophy” to one more focused on “core principles” of small government, fiscal responsibility and “compassion towards others.”
“It really is a race about continuing down the same path that we’ve been on versus rebranding the party or taking a more positive approach,” Dooley said.
Both men want to expand the reach of a party significantly in the minority on Beacon Hill and whose voters make up less than 10% of those registered statewide. The GOP lost seats in the Legislature in 2020 and none of its federal candidates cracked 40% of the vote.
“This was a tough year for the Republican Party, but we basically held serve,” Lyons said. “We did lose a Senate seat, but we flipped a longterm Democratic seat in Westfield and held on to a retiring Republican’s (seat) down in the Cape area. But just as important is we built organizations in districts where Republicans can win.”
Lyons wants to make a “strong commitment downballot to increase and improve our Republican town committees” and build the GOP “from the ground up.”
The GOP “stands for freedom, it stands for individual liberty, it stands for personal responsibility, it stands for free market systems,” Lyons said. “When you compare that to the radical view of where the Democrat Party takes us, we win all the time.”
But Dooley said, “I think people want to hear why we’re better, not just why the other guy is bad.”
Dooley is pitching party unity — complete with a “United Massachusetts GOP” logo on his campaign website — after years of “infighting” that’s driven a wedge between the Lyons and Baker wings of the party and hampered its fundraising efforts. That chasm widened last month when Lyons asked five state and federal agencies to investigate the state party’s financial operations under his predecessors, including Baker allies.
“Our party is currently almost bankrupt. We can’t continue with the infighting,” Dooley said. “It’s hard enough to win with 9.9% of the vote as it is.”
Dooley rolled out endorsements from more than half of his Republican House colleagues Saturday as part of his final push in a race sources say appears close.
Elected state committee members will meet at 1 p.m. today at the Littleton distribution center of 1a Auto, 2018 Republican congressional hopeful Rick Green’s company. Members will stay in their cars and audio will be transmitted via FM radio. The winner will be decided by majority vote.