Former state representative and Donald Trump-backed candidate Geoff Diehl secured the GOP nomination for governor of Massachusetts on Tuesday.
Diehl defeated the more moderate businessman Chris Doughty and will face off this November against Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey, who would be the first woman and first openly gay person elected to the office.
Massachusetts’ current governor, Republican Charlie Baker, decided not to run for a third term.
Massachusetts is the latest Democratic stronghold in which Republicans have nominated the Trump-backed candidate following victories by Leora Levy in Connecticut and Dan Cox in Maryland.
Diehl will have a tough time defeating Healey, who has emerged as the heavy favorite in the race in one of the most liberal states in the country where less than 10% of registered voters are Republican compared to 31% Democrat.
While Massachusetts has a history of electing fiscally conservative, social moderate Republicans as governor — including Mitt Romney and Baker — voters may not warm up to a Trump loyalist.
Diehl unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren in 2018, when he received just 36% of the vote despite winning a three-way GOP primary.
During a victory party Tuesday before the GOP race was called, Healey, whose only opponent dropped out of the race, claimed that regardless of who she would run against, “We know he’ll be out of touch with the values we stand for.”
“They’ll bring Trumpism to Massachusetts,” she added about both candidates.
Diehl’s ties to Trump go back to 2016, when he served as co-chair for the ex-president’s campaign in Massachusetts.
He has embraced Trump’s claims that he had won the 2020 election. Last year he said he didn’t think it was a “stolen election” but later said the election was rigged despite any evidence.
Healey has campaigned on expanding job training programs, making child care more affordable and modernizing the state’s schools. She promised to protect “access to safe and legal abortion in Massachusetts” following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
She will look to break Massachusetts’ long history of former attorney generals losing their bids for governor. Since 1958, six AGs have ran for office and each lost.
With Post Wires
