Mass. governor's race intensifies as GOP candidates seize on LA protests

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a day ago

If you're a member of the Bay State's political and chattering class, and you needed a reminder that Massachusetts is officially in the thick of a gubernatorial campaign season, then you didn't have to look much further than your email inbox on Monday.
There, you would have found dueling press releases from Mike Kennealy and Brian Shortsleeve, the two former Baker administration officials dueling for the GOP nomination for the Corner Office in 2026.
The target, inevitably, was Democratic Gov. Maura Healey, who'd signed onto a statement with her fellow Democratic governors criticizing the Trump administration's decision to federalize National Guard forces in response to immigration protests in Los Angeles.
The statement, issued through the Democratic Governors Association, took the Republican White House to task for its unusual decision to sidestep Golden State Gov. Gavin Newsom when it called in the National Guard — which 700 U.S. Marines have since supplemented.
The White House's end-run was 'an alarming abuse of power. Governors are the commanders-in-chief of their National Guard, and activating them within their own borders without consulting or working with a state's governor is ineffective and dangerous,' the DGA's statement asserted.
Kennealy, who served as Baker's housing and economic development czar, was first out of the gate at little after 4 p.m., arguing that, by opposing the federal response, the Democratic incumbent was 'legitimizing criminal behavior under the guise of protest.'
Shortsleeve, who ran the MBTA under Baker, followed up around 6:30 p.m. He got in a similar shot, condemning Healey for appearing to side with 'rioting protesters waving foreign flags' who were 'violently attacking American law enforcement officers.'
Shortsleeve also slammed Healey for her management of the state's hugely expensive migrant crisis and, by implication, her criticism of the aggressive tactics of federal immigration agents as they've rounded up undocumented people across the state.
'If cooperation between the federal and state governments is what she wants, you wouldn't know it by her refusal to work in an orderly way to ensure criminal illegal immigrants in our state were delivered to federal law enforcement for deportation instead of released onto our streets,' Shortsleeve said.
Kennealy, who didn't explicitly mention the migrant crisis, but who has been publicly critical, observed that 'when the federal government offers help to restore order and protect citizens, we take it — because doing the right thing for our people should always come before scoring partisan points.'
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Taken together, the broadsides from the two Republican hopefuls were a reminder that the migrant crisis, which has subsided in its intensity, remains a potent line of attack, and that the Democratic incumbent remains vulnerable on the issue.
More than half of respondents (52%) to a UMass Amherst/WCVB-TV poll in February, for instance, said they disapproved of the Arlington Democrat's management of the shelter crisis.
Their mood was reflective of national trends.
A broader UMass poll in April found Americans to be of 'two minds' on the issue, supporting a path to citizenship, even as they supported the White House's moves against migrants with criminal records.
A CBS News poll completed before Saturday's unrest in Los Angeles, however, provided a reminder that public patience for the White House's tactics extends only so far.
That's because support for enforcement against non-criminals drops off precipitously, the poll found.
While 55% of respondents approved of Trump's deportation goals, only 44% approved of his approach to the deportation effort.
Healey, in public appearances, repeatedly has drawn that line.
She's stressed that she supports taking criminals off the streets, even as she's decried the apparent shroud of secrecy that's enveloped the apprehension of such noncriminal migrants as Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk and Milford High School student-athlete Marcelo Gomes da Silva.
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'This is part of the problem that we're seeing with ICE across the country. And certainly here in Massachusetts, people are being picked up. We have no information about their circumstances,' Healey said after an unrelated news conference at the State House last month. 'There have been real questions raised about due process and whether or not ICE and immigration officials are ... complying with due process here and in other states. And we need answers.'
It's not clear, however, if the Massachusetts voters were grasping the subtlety of that policy fine line.
An internal poll by Kennealy's campaign pointed to a similar vulnerability for Healey on immigration issues, The Boston Herald reported last month.
And 49% of respondents to a University of New Hampshire poll last week said they approved of her job performance, compared to 45% who said they disapproved. With the poll's 3.3% margin of error, that's a statistical dead heat.
Even still, Healey's loyalists pounced on the UNH canvass, dismissing it as an outlier, as they pointed to other public polling that showed her more broadly popular overall.
'Governor Healey is going to earn reelection because she understands Massachusetts people need someone who's going to fight to lower costs for them, going to fight to increase housing opportunities for them, going to fight back against Donald Trump,' state Democratic Party Chairperson Steve Kerrigan said during an interview on WBZ-TV's 'Keller @ Large' program that aired last weekend. 'And frankly, neither Mike Kennealy nor Brian Shortsleeve are willing to do any of that.'
The lingering question is what happens if Massachusetts, which already has been targeted by the White House, finds itself facing a Los Angeles-style protest that results in Trump doing a gubernatorial end-run by federalizing the state National Guard or, at its extreme end, dispatching U.S. troops to Boston or some other city.
If elected, would Kennealy or Shortsleeve acquiesce in the face of such an action? Or would they protest a usurpation of their executive authority?
At that point, the question moves from political to practical.
Healey staked out her territory with that DGA statement. The responses from Shortsleeve and Kennealy would speak volumes about how they intend to lead during what presumably would be the final two years of Trump's term.
That's something that Massachusetts voters would have to decide for themselves. Which makes their answers bear watching.
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Read the original article on MassLive.