Two media assumptions about the race to replace Gov. Charlie Baker are inconveniently incorrect. Trapped by reporting formulas and propelled by activists on both the left and the right, the media may falsely portray this statewide election as one in which Democratic primary voters will nominate the most ideologically left candidates, followed by a potentially competitive general election in a national climate favorable for Republicans.
The truth is less enticing: There will effectively be no general election, and the victorious Democratic candidates will be those perceived to be most moderate.
Some campaigns are heeding the data — gubernatorial frontrunner Maura Healey launched her campaign as the "continue what works" candidate — but most of the discourse surrounding the 2022 gubernatorial race has continued advancing an alternate world with a far-left Democratic electorate and a viable Republican candidate.
The competitive general election myth is driven by the natural disposition to frame politics as between the two major parties. That would be fine if the Massachusetts Republican Party functioned as a major party (it does not), or if a moderate could win a GOP primary (impossible without pre-existing celebrity or massive self-funding).
There is enough data on the Massachusetts Republican Party’s irrelevance to fill an 18-wheeler. Take a look at the GOP caucus in the Massachusetts Senate, which could fit in the new Vespa scooter with room to spare. In that 40-member state legislative chamber, there are more Democrats named Michael (5) than Republicans (3).
We pretend that Republicans are viable candidates in Massachusetts because that is what we are used to. There are supposed to be two functioning parties, which we (kind of) have nationally and in most states. But the media must accept reality in 2022 and cover the Democratic primary as though it were a general election. Because it is, and it has been throughout the era of former President Donald Trump. Baker just masked that reality.
Republicans have not held more than six of the 40 state senate seats since 1998. But this is not just the Legislature, or the disarray of a state party that may not have the resources to put on a convention. The MassGOP is a national anomaly, one of the weakest parties in the country.
Just 27% of voters in the state identify as or lean Republican. Only Wyoming Democrats claim a lower percentage. Fewer than 10% of Massachusetts voters are registered Republicans, lowest in the country.
Over the past two decades, there are just enough proof points (Scott Brown! Charlie Baker!) to enable the myth of a viable Republican candidate. But the data shows otherwise, and Scott Brown’s special election victory is now more than a dozen years ago.
Since 2002, there have been 111 regularly scheduled statewide and congressional elections. Republicans are 2-109. Both victories were Baker wins architected by Democratic strategist Will Keyser. Without a former Ted Kennedy and Marty Meehan aide setting strategy, the Massachusetts GOP is 0-109 in November elections since 2002. That trend will continue this year.
The second narrative mistake is that Democratic primary voters are moving far to the left. This constant leftward movement is a natural assumption for anyone who spends significant time among politically minded college graduates in deep-blue areas and log hours on Twitter (e.g. Massachusetts political consultants and journalists who shape the narrative of elections). And, like in the first fallacy, there are enough sporadic proof points to inflate the thesis out of proportion to reality.
After the 2018 election saw high-profile legislative primaries from the far-left, we demonstrated that such progressive insurgencies only occur within the most-blue 10% of districts — the “Left Decile” — and predicted no Democratic incumbent would lose in the other 90% of seats in 2020. Credible primary challenges from the left in Brighton, Charlestown and Lawrence endorsed by the progressive establishment all failed in 2020, along with congressional challenges to Reps. Richie Neal and Stephen Lynch.
The data is clear to anyone who glances up from Twitter long enough. The state’s leading nonpartisan pollster, MassINC’s Steve Koczela, wrote earlier this year that “the contours of Baker’s approval rating look familiar, with 86% of Democrats offering a favorable review of his performance.”
The progressive pollster Change Research found, immediately after the 2018 election, that Baker would have won the Democratic primary by 35 points. An August 2020 poll from SurveyUSA found Baker’s lead at 49 points over Maura Healey and Marty Walsh (again, this is among Democratic primary voters). The same poll found that the 13% of Democratic primary voters identifying as "very progressive" are more than three times as likely to use Twitter multiple times per day as the much larger blocs of mere "progressive" voters, who constitute 31% of the primary electorate. Moderates and conservatives totaled 53%.
Nearly half of voters in this tweet-happy left decile prefers a candidate “uncompromising in their progressive stances” over one who “will work to find common ground,” while more than 8 in 10 Democratic primary voters choose common ground.
In fact, the roughly 8% of Americans classified as progressive activists moved quickly left in recent years, and take up disproportionate mindshare among political elites. It was easy to see early in the 2020 presidential primary that the debate was untethered from reality and that voters preferred a moderate. After several cycles of state elections with little debate over policy, voters deserve a realistic conversation to deliver a mandate to the many statewide officeholders to make progress.
Liam Kerr, a Democratic activist, is an organizer of Priorities For Progress (PFP) and co-founder of WelcomePAC.
