High Approval Ratings For Governor Baker Show Voters Seeking 'Comfort Food,' Says Political Analyst

Gov. Charlie Baker delivers the state of the state address in the Massachusetts House Chamber Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018, in Boston.

Joe Mathieu, host of WGBH's Morning Edition

Joe Mathieu is the anchor and executive editor of WGBH's Morning Edition. Before joining WGBH Radio, Joe worked for six years as morning anchor on WBZ NewsRadio in Boston, where he was part of the team that received a Peabody Award for coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings. Joe also received the Edward R. Murrow Award for best newscast in a major market.

March 31, 2021

Updated August 07, 2023

A poll from Suffolk University and the Boston Globe shows that Governor Charlie Baker has high approval marks from most people in Massachusetts, reaching 71 percent approval for his handling of the pandemic. GBH Morning Edition host Joe Mathieu spoke with WBZ political analyst and GBH News contributor Jon Keller to learn more about what the results say about the governor's pandemic response, and his prospects for potential reelection. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.

Joe Mathieu: We hear every couple of months [that] Charlie Baker's the most popular governor in the country, thanks to the Morning Consult poll. This latest one gives him 71 percent approval for his handling of the pandemic. Despite a lot of criticism lately, is Charlie Baker Teflon, or what?

Jon Keller: If you didn't already think that, you've got to start to wonder, Joe. It's been six weeks since the initial website crash. Remember, with the flying octopi — however you pronounce it — all over the place? And that has been six weeks of some of the most intense, sustained criticism of any governor on talk radio, in op-ed pages [and] in coffee shops that I've ever seen. Yet here he is with numbers that are down over their historic peaks, but not down all that much. In a blame game culture like Massachusetts when it comes to our political leaders, this is just extraordinary from the right direction, wrong track numbers, how we feel about the way the state is going, all the way through specific feelings about how he's handled the vaccination rollout, Joe.

Mathieu: I'd love to get into some of the specifics here with you, Jon, but for the sake of our listeners, when it comes to polls, we had one earlier this month from the Fiscal Alliance and a big deal was made about it showing lower numbers for Baker, suggesting that people were turning on the governor over all of this. Was that just a blip on the radar?

Keller: Hard to say. I guess pick your poison when it comes to polls. Suffolk is sort of a gold standard of polling. Dave Paleologos over there tends to be right on. And look, if you look at a number of different factors, these numbers in a way do make sense, even though they are surprising. I guess the bottom line is, I don't know if you've had a shot yet, Joe, but I've had my first one and two million people in Massachusetts have had at least one shot. And let me tell you something. You might have gone in there muttering under your breath about Charlie Baker and what a botched job and how hard it was to get this appointment. As you're walking out, you tend to feel a whole lot better about things and that apparently includes the way you feel about the governor.

Mathieu: Well, to that end, more than 1.3 million people in Mass. are now fully vaccinated. So, Jon Keller, when you dig into the data and demographics, specifically, what stands out to you here?

Keller: What really jumps out at me, Joe, is that three groups that have traditionally been at the core of the Democratic Party voting here in Massachusetts — women, Blacks and Hispanics — are Charlie Baker's biggest fans. There's a gender gap throughout this poll. Women have an eight-point higher opinion of Baker's handling of vaccine distribution than men do. That's a gender gap that shows up throughout the poll. [There's] 71 percent approval [among Black people] and 82 percent [among Hispanics]. That's the highest number of any demographic group in the poll. Governor Baker has managed to build up over these past six years-plus a degree of credibility among these demographic groups that I think is really paying off now. Another thing that jumps out at me is the political chattering classes have all been in a lather about what a terrible job Baker's been doing and how the Teflon finally wore off. But the political chattering classes tend to forget that most people are not on Twitter and they don't live in a bubble. For instance, they asked in the Suffolk-Globe poll whether you believe we've done as well, better, not as well or worse than other states. Well, guess what? Lots of people have family or friends in other states and are talking to them about what's been going on. 71 percent overall believe we've done as well or better than them. I have family and friends in Maryland and I've been getting a steady diet of the horror show down there. So it's all relative, Joe.

WATCH: "They're [voters] looking for comfort food. They're looking for continuity. Charlie Baker offers that."

Mathieu: We only have 30 seconds left, Jon Keller. How'd he do among Republicans — conservatives, specifically?

Keller: It's a parallel universe. They don't like him. And the single biggest threat to Baker's reelection prospects, if he decides to run, I think could come in a Republican Party. Geoff Diehl, the former Senate candidate and state rep., is making noises about running. I think he could beat Baker in a primary, so that may set up the prospect of our first ever serious independent candidacy, if Charlie Baker decides to go that route.