Gonzalez savors win, sets sights on Baker
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Gonzalez joined Boston Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting” to talk about his victory over Bob Massie and what he thinks it will take to beat Charlie Baker in November.
Q: Congratulations. How does it feel to be a winner?
A: It feels great ... we have a great campaign staff, we had thousands of volunteers who worked incredibly hard over the last few months and it showed in the result, and I’m really proud of it. And we’re fully engaged now, moving forward, and we’re really intent on winning this general election and making sure people have a governor who’s going to aim high and make a difference in their lives.
Q: You got many more votes in your primary than Charlie Baker got in his. Do you take any lessons in the fact that there was a higher turnout in the Democratic gubernatorial primary than in Baker’s?
A: Yeah ... there is clearly something going on, there is a lot of energy, a lot of people fired up ... and this is consistent with what we’ve seen across the country. Doesn’t matter if you’re an incumbent, doesn’t matter if you have millions of dollars in money of campaign funds ... or what the pundits are say- ing or what the polls are saying, people are the ones that are deciding these elections and we ran a strong grassroots campaign, knocked on over 100,000 doors, made tens of thousands of phone calls, person-to-person interactions to make sure people understood the choice in this election, and it was reflected in the results in our race and in a number of others.
Q: Can you fill the role of exciting challenger the same way Ayanna (Pressley) did or the same way that Rachael Rollins did for voters who are looking for change for the status quo?
A: That’s what the voters are going to have to decide and they’re going to be able to make that judgment on their own.
Q: What is the case that Charlie Baker is beatable? He just announced yesterday the support of Democratic mayors.
A: They way we’re going to beat Charlie Baker, to answer your question, is the support of regular people — weighing in, getting engaged and that was the lesson on Tuesday and the lesson we’ve seen around the country in recent elections.