The blame game is on in deep-blue Massachusetts, where voters approved controversial ballot initiatives such as tanking the state’s high school graduation requirement exam.
Most fingers are pointed at Gov. Maura Healey, the top campaign surrogate for fellow Democrat Joyce Craig, whose Granite State gubernatorial campaign ended in defeat at the hands of Republican Kelly Ayotte.
“Maura Healey was simply MIA from MA,” one Massachusetts campaign operative told NHJournal on Wednesday.
Healey’s constant campaigning in New Hampshire with Craig meant that she wasn’t taking care of business in the Bay State, the Massachusetts Republican Party said.
“Rather than addressing the urgent issues facing Massachusetts–from the costly migrant crisis to affordability and transparency in government–Gov. Healey has spent recent months on the campaign trail, gambling with her political capital only to watch her efforts collapse,” the MassGOP said Wednesday.
Eliminating the state’s MCAS standardized test graduation requirement, a ballot initiative Healey opposed, wound up prevailing in a landslide vote. Healey’s non-existent presence on the Massachusetts campaign trail also coincided with Bay State Republicans’ historic night as the party flipped the most state legislative seats during a presidential election cycle in more than 40 years.
“While Republicans have reason to celebrate, Gov. Healey has little to show for her time away,” MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale said in a statement, adding one of those flipped seats featured a 24-year Democrat incumbent who once held the third highest leadership post in the House.
Healey was scheduled to appear at the Democrats’ election night party in Boston’s South End, but never showed up. According to MassDems Chairman Steve Kerrigan, that’s because she was still in New Hampshire by the time polls closed in Massachusetts.
“In Massachusetts and across the country today, there are many people who are very happy,” a visibly dour Healey said at a Wednesday afternoon press conference in Boston, a day after her nemesis, Donald Trump, soundly defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris to win back the White House. “There are also many people across the country and in Massachusetts who are unhappy, who are having a hard time, and are not pleased with the results.
“If you’re feeling scared, if you’re feeling vulnerable, we see you.”
Plenty of Granite State voters saw Healey, too, but it didn’t have any measurable impact on the governor’s race. Trailing in the polls by about three points, Craig ended up losing by about nine.
During her press conference, Healey worked to put forth a unifying governor-for-all message, and claimed “Massachusetts has always been a state that’s showing where this country is going, not where it has been.”
Yet it was Healey who was constantly going out of Massachusetts with Craig, even traveling across the country to attend a series of fundraisers in San Francisco and Berkeley. And it was Massachusetts voters who rarely saw Healey.
“A Maura Healey post-election press conference just like almost every other press conference, pure gaslighting,” quipped Paul Craney, spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, an organization that sank money into a statewide radio ad campaign opposing the ballot initiative to dump the MCAS graduation requirement.
Healey was asked during her press conference about her constant campaigning in New Hampshire and whether it affected voting in Massachusetts.
“I care a lot about that state,” Healey said, pointing out that she was born and raised in New Hampshire. “We have a very close relationship, literally, as border states. I’m proud of the campaign that Joyce Craig ran, she would be a great governor, and the folks in the great Granite State have now decided.
“Look, in terms of ballot questions and the like, I was out there giving my position, but I’m just one vote.”
The MassGOP ripped Healey for what the party said was a weak attempt to campaign against the MCAS question.
“Healey’s alignment with the MassGOP on Ballot Question 2, which impacts Massachusetts students, was half-hearted at best,” the statement read. “In the critical final days of the election cycle, she was conspicuously absent from the conversation, leaving students and parents without a strong advocate.”
Carnevale had more to add.
“Instead of focusing on the pressing issues of the Commonwealth, she chose to campaign in Pennsylvania, supporting Kamala Harris, who ultimately lost her presidential bid,” she said. “She also headed to New Hampshire, deploying tired and inappropriate attacks against Kelly Ayotte, who subsequently secured a victory as governor.”
