Is the time right for Marty Walsh to jump into the governor’s race?

With the announcement that Governor Baker is taking a pass on running for a third term, there's a lot of speculation around what the Democratic field might look like. Jon Keller, WBZ TV political analyst Jon Keller and Erin O’Brien, political science professor at UMass Boston, joined host Sean Corcoran on Morning Edition to discuss. This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity and length.

Sean Corcoran: State Attorney General Maura Healey has stayed quiet so far, though it's been long assumed that she's looking to make a run. Erin, let's start with you. When do you think we might hear about Maura Healy's intentions?

Erin O’Brien: Sometime before the election? I'm going to go with a bold prediction. For a lot of people in Massachusetts, Healey versus Baker was a dream matchup. They're two political heavy hitters. By all accounts, Maura Healey has ambition to higher office. So Healey seems to be the person that if it was going to be an all-star race, she's the one who would get in.

But, we're also hearing rumblings that Marty Walsh wants to make his return to Massachusetts permanent. Given that Geoff Diehl, the other Republican candidate, the Trump candidate on the Republican primary side — given that that's who the Republicans are running, the Democrats understand their primary to be "the race."

Corcoran: Jon, [what’s] your take on Maura Healey and what we might see?

Jon Keller: Well, if she wants to be able to put the touch on campaign donors in this calendar year, she's going to have to make a move pretty soon. And as does Marty Walsh. He can't let this hang out there too long. I don't think the White House would be too thrilled about that. But look — Walsh's interest is serious, and that's a complicating factor for Maura Healey.

It's one thing for her or her supporters to say, “well, she gets in automatically. She's a massive front runner.” I think that's frankly a little bit disrespectful to the three candidates: Ben Downing, Sonia Chang-Díaz and the professor Danielle Allen, political scientist.

Corcoran: Jon, you've said that the timing may be right here for Walsh.

Jon Keller: I think it might. Look, there's a solid, well-established track record over the last several decades of Massachusetts voters unflaggingly voting Democratic for just about every other office — federal office, state legislature, county offices. And yet the governorship, more often than not, has been reserved for a moderate Republican.

If we look at the Democratic primary as tantamount to election, I think you've got to focus on who might be the Baker surrogate in the Democratic field — who's the moderate Democrat who can appeal to moderate independents and moderate Democratic voters and maybe even peel off a few Republicans. Maura Healey is to the right of the three early entrants in the race in some significant ways. But Marty Walsh is more to her right. So what Walsh does, I think, is key here.

Corcoran: Erin, what do you think about that? What about Marty Walsh? Has he been gone long enough? Have we had time to miss you yet?

O’Brien: You know, he's been commuting to D.C. and not the inverse. Running for governor, that helps him to say, “my Massachusetts roots are so strong I got some Washington experience, but I didn't go to Washington.” I think the disadvantages he has is — anybody, not in Eastern Mass knows how Boston runs the show. Western Mass., Central Mass, is a bit resentful of that.

But he's coming off being most recently mayor of Boston. I think that hurts a little bit, and he's never run statewide, whereas Maura Healey has put together an apparatus. But, you know, Marty Walsh, his ground game is incredibly strong. He's put his ground game to work in New Hampshire and other places. But he hasn't run in Springfield, in Holyoke and Palmer, and he's not a particularly well-known entity.

Corcoran: Jon, you mentioned state Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz, former state senator Ben Downing and Harvard Professor Danielle Allen as the three Dems already in this race. They don't have that name recognition that a Healey and Walsh have. How do they distinguish themselves against those big names?

Keller: It's going to be tough, Sean, because essentially they're all competing for the same wing of the Democratic Party. Right now, it's a battle for the left or left-leaning wing of the party, and that is the wing of the party that tends to dominate internal party workings and the party primary process. But again, I think this is going to be different, and I would take a further step back and look at the broader context of Massachusetts pandemic-era politics.

It's been a field day for incumbents. Ed Markey over Joe Kennedy; almost no legislative incumbents defeated, except a couple who were under indictment at the time. So, even the Boston mayoral race, which was hailed as this great progressive breakthrough, saw a candidate in Michelle Wu, who had topped the citywide council ticket twice, almost three cycles, in a row and was a known quantity, hardly a Hail Mary pass by the electorate.

So come the next year, will Democratic primary voters — don't forget that includes independents — be looking to keep that trend going? Reach for a more comfortable, safe choice again in that Baker mold of someone who might be a little more centrist or more right-leaning than this left wing of the Democratic Party? That's what I'm watching to see.

O'Brien: I have a slightly different read. I think Sonia Chang-Díaz is the one the candidate right now who is most problematic for Marty Walsh or Maura Healey, because she is a woman of color. She has shown her willingness to get in the race. And both Marty Walsh and Maura Healey would have to say, “I'm bringing something unique. I'm bringing something different.”

But keep in mind that in those primaries, it was the Bernie crew [who] went to the Markeyverse, went to Michelle Wu. Yes, incumbents won, but also an outside influence for the far left wing of the party for the most woke elements of the party — and I think Maura Healey and former Mayor Walsh would have some explaining to do: You're getting in when a woman of color with good policy, in their view, already was willing to announce. And my Massachusetts tea leaves, I can't help but think, gosh, if Marty Walsh won and he was governor and Michelle Wu was mayor, they were going to run against each other just a year ago.