RED FLAGS FOR GOP IN BLUE BAY STATE
Liz, Trump could bite Baker in 2018
They are jarring early warning shots for Gov. Charlie Baker.
The election results last week showed what happens when motivated, Trump-hating Democrats show up to the polls, and if the trend continues next November, it will threaten Baker’s re-election hopes.
And the state police scandal involving scrubbed police reports that forced the hasty retirement of Col. Richard McKeon shows how quickly the Baker administration can become engulfed in a firestorm.
The first bad news for Baker came last Tuesday, where Republicans across the nation — including some in Massachusetts — got thumped by Democrats. In Virginia, Democrats streamed to the polls in the highest numbers in decades for a governor’s race. Democrat Ralph Northam beat the Trump-endorsed Republican Ed Gillespie by rolling up huge margins in Democrat-heavy areas like Northern Virginia, Central Virginia and Hampton Roads.
But the GOP carnage was hardly limited to Virginia. In the town of Groton, Conn., seven Republican councilors got voted out in a clean sweep for Democrats. One vanquished Republican councilor had been in his position for 26 years.
In Massachusetts, Baker-endorsed candidates lost almost all their races, including Matt St. Hilaire, Baker’s state personnel director, who got bounced off the Beverly City Council.
Baker has done a good job keeping far away from President Trump, but that doesn’t mean he’s immune from Trump backlash.
The Republican governor doesn’t have a strong Democratic opponent right now, but he’s got Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the same ballot. If Warren rallies her base, especially against a Trumpbacked candidate like state Rep. Geoff Diehl, the ripple effects could easily tilt the governor’s race.
Warren got 1.7 million votes in 2012 — a presidential election year — while Baker got just a little more than 1 million votes in 2014. If Warren gets anywhere near her totals from five years ago, that’s trouble for Baker.
“That’s why Warren is a wild card for Baker,” one GOP consultant said. “When excitement is up and turnout is up, it’s always worse for Republican candidates in Massachusetts.”
The good news for the GOP governor is that right now he has high approval ratings, and three fairly weak Democratic candidates. That should help insulate him from some of the anti-Trump backlash.
But there are some potential pitfalls for Baker along the way. Like the abrupt retirement of his state police commander after troopers were forced to alter an arrest report about a judge’s daughter.
And last year’s patronage scandals at his environmental agency forced out several administration officials. Such missteps threaten to tarnish Baker’s reputation for squeaky clean government reform.
The ongoing problems at the MBTA also continue to dog Baker. Getting your commuter rail named as the worst transit system in the nation — worse than even New York and New Jersey — doesn’t exactly look good on a campaign bumper sticker. Unless you’re a Democrat.