It’s hard to look at the contours of the Massachusetts governor’s race and conjure up a scenario in which Democrat Maura Healey loses. The polls have pointed toward a Healey landslide for months. With Election Day fast approaching and early voting already underway, one recent survey shows Healey leading Republican Geoff Diehl by a margin of nearly two to one.
Talk to a die-hard Diehl supporter, though, and there’s a decent chance they’ll tell you a Diehl victory is still possible — and maybe even inevitable.
“I feel Geoff has this,” Pat Borden said recently at a Diehl rally at the Dream Diner in Tyngsboro, on the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border.
Borden, who hails from Diehl’s hometown of Whitman, is a kindly, soft-spoken grandmother who thinks Massachusetts is sliding into a political and cultural abyss, and who sees Diehl as a good man who can pull the state back on track. She cited his opposition to vaccine mandates and his plan to steer some state education funding toward students in private schools, like the parochial schools her own children attended years ago.
Asked about the mass of data pointing to a Healey win, Borden’s reply was simple.
“I don’t believe the polls,” she said. “I really don’t."
Believing the polls would mean accepting that most Massachusetts voters prefer Healey to Diehl. And for Borden, that's an unacceptable conclusion.
"They don’t want Maura Healey,” Borden insisted, adding that Healey is "too radical" and would bring "communism" to Massachusetts.
While Healey, the current attorney general, is a Democrat, she’s cast herself throughout the campaign as the political heir apparent to outgoing Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican moderate who’s enjoyed high statewide approval ratings throughout his eight years in office.
Whitman resident Joyce Annese — who was holding a huge Diehl sign with Borden in Tyngsboro — is equally sure Diehl will be the next governor, despite what she believes is a nefarious push by the press.
“I feel that the fake news is pushing Maura Healey to try to get her in,” Annese said.
Over the course of three Diehl campaign stops — in Lawrence, Tyngsboro and Taunton — Borden and Annese stood out for their sky-high confidence. But they were also representative of a broader distrust of both the conventional wisdom about Diehl’s prospects and the institutions behind it.
In Lawrence, Lynne Kumm, a former Methuen school committee member, lamented what she called the abandonment of Diehl by large parts of the conservative establishment, and cited Howie Carr, the Boston Herald columnist and talk show host, as a prime example.
Carr endorsed Wrentham businessman Chris Doughty, Diehl’s more moderate rival, in the Republican primary, saying Diehl simply couldn't win in November.
“I would call out Howie Carr as a complete disappointment,” Kumm said. “I’ve probably listened to Howie Carr for 30 years, and I cannot believe that after all the support he gave to Geoff [before], that he's turned his back on Geoff. And it's heartbreaking, frankly.”
Even so, Kumm said, Diehl could still win — especially if, as she believes, many of his supporters have kept quiet until now due to cultural pressures in Massachusetts.
“I think there’s a lot of parents, and there's a lot of voters, that are too afraid to publicly support Geoff because of the environment,” Kumm said. “I think it’s a very scary environment. And I think there’s a lot, to me, that are going to go in that booth and do the right thing for this state.”
Diehl, it’s worth noting, didn't publicly question the polls or complain about media mistreatment during those three stops Sunday.
Instead, as he made his pitch — which included making Massachusetts more affordable and resisting teaching about racism in the state’s public schools — Diehl reminded supporters of the 2010 U.S. Senate special election, in which Republican Scott Brown beat Democrat Martha Coakley after being largely written off.
“Scott Brown … talked to me about a week ago and said, ‘Geoff, I was down 15 points a week before my election, and I won by seven points,” Diehl said in Lawrence, speaking through a large white bullhorn. “That was a 22-point swing.” (In fact, Brown won by five points, and most polls released in the week before the election showed him in the lead.)
As the crowd burst into applause, Diehl pressed on, describing how a surprise win next week could launch a new Republican dynasty.
“If you give me and Leah [Cole Allen, Diehl’s running mate] the chance to serve you for four years, it’s going to be — it’s going to be tough,” Diehl said. “We’re going to have a lot of fights on our hands, but we’re going to win, and we’re going to have a great four years. And if we do a good job with four years, I think we can have four more years and have an excellent eight years overall.”
Earlier this year, a Diehl campaign spokesperson raised eyebrows by telling the New York Times “No comment” when asked if Diehl will accept the results of the 2022 election. He later clarified that response in a statement to GBH News, stating he would accept the result of the election if no irregularities call it into question.
While Diehl’s stump speeches Sunday included no new nods in that direction, some Diehl supporters seemed primed to question the election’s legitimacy.
“There’s a lot of us out there, and I think everyone just needs to get out there and vote,” Violet from Melrose, who asked that her last name not be used, said in Lawrence. “Hopefully, we'll have a fair election, and we'll see what happens.”
At Diehl’s last outdoor event of the day, a rally on Taunton Green, Bob Crisafulli of Brockton went further, suggesting that a Diehl loss would point toward serious systemic breakdowns.
“Absolutely, he should be able to win this election, as long as there’s no monkey business with the mail-in ballots,” Crisafulli said. “That’s what I’m concerned about. … If everything’s legit, he’s got a good chance.”
Another rally-goer, Ben Rosa of Taunton, said Diehl has a “pretty good shot to pull things off."
Rosa didn't raise the specter of election fraud. But he did say that, based on the anecdotal evidence he's encountered, widespread talk of a Healey landslide is premature.
“I drive for a living, and I’m in all different places throughout the state,” Rosa said. “And I just see all the signs for him, and I barely see anything for Maura.
“Now, I know that signs don’t vote — that’s a common saying in politics,” Rosa added. “Still, if you take the state as a whole, I think that he’s probably got to have at least twice the signs that she does, and maybe more.”
Not every Diehl backer thinks his prospects are rosy. In Lawrence, Kumm, the former Methuen school committee member, stressed that she knows Diehl faces daunting odds.
"He's got a tall order ahead of him," Kumm said. "This is Massachusetts."
Still, Kumm added, "Just look across the nation right now. There's a lot of places where they never thought a Republican could win, and they're either catching [up] or even inching [into the] lead.
"Can you imagine if he ever pulls it off? This would blow the Scott Brown victory away."
