Woke Dem Governor in big re-election danger, according to new poll

Daily Mail​

24-04-2025

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey is in an 'extremely vulnerable position' amid the chaos sown during her first term, according to an internal poll paid for by her Republican rival Mike Kennealy.
Some 45.5 percent of voters hold a favorable opinion of the Democrat politician - but the same number dislike her as a leader, per the Opinion Diagnostics survey seen by DailyMail.com.
The study of more than 800 likely Massachusetts voters from February 11-12 found that 33 percent hold a 'very' unfavorable opinion of Healey, who has served as governor since January 2023.
'After a first-year honeymoon, Healey has faced unrelenting challenges over the past sixteen months on issues such as immigration, affordability, energy, transparency, and housing,' the pollsters said.
'As a result, Healey enters the 2026 election cycle in an extremely vulnerable position.'
Left-leaning Healey, 54, who is the first woman elected governor of Massachusetts and was the first lesbian woman elected attorney general of a US state, has been walking a political tightrope since Donald Trump, 78, came to power in January.
The first-term Democrat from Arlington, MA, has been critical of Trump's tariffs and deportations, and blamed his policies on the 'tremendous amount of chaos, uncertainty and unpredictability' seen in Massachusetts and beyond.
Despite mixed reviews of Healey among people in her state, a narrow plurality of voters approve of the job she has done as governor overall, by a 45 percent to 41 percent margin.
However, she falls short on four key public policy issues - housing, taxes, the immigration crisis, and strengthening the economy.
Only 25 percent of people said they approved of her work on housing, 32 percent on taxes, 33 percent on the immigration crisis, and 39 percent on the economy.
When asked whether Healey has performed her job well enough to deserve re-election, only 37 percent of voters say she has, compared to 46 percent who said it's time to give a new person a chance.
In a memo accompanying the Opinion Diagnostics poll, Brian Wynne, the head of the company and former campaign manager for Gov. Charlie Baker, said Healey has a 'net disapproval' of her handling of key issues like immigration and housing.
'A plurality of voters believe that Healey's job performance warrants a change in governor,' Wynne said, according to a copy of the poll obtained by DailyMail.com.
'While they are open to replacing the chief executive of the commonwealth, voters will not accept just any alternative.'
The poll was commissioned by Mike Kennealy, 57, the former Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development, who is running against Healey in the 2026 gubernatorial election.
It found that in a hypothetical matchup between the two, Healey narrowly led by 37.5 percent to 35.9 percent - but among the 27 percent of voters who were undecided, more believe Healey 'does not deserve re-election', according to the memo.
DailyMail.com has contacted Healey's office for comment.
Massachusetts is facing a housing affordability crisis, and needs to build more than 222,000 more housing units over the next decade to address spiraling demand, according to a Bloomberg report from February 2025.
Median home prices in the Bay State have risen 73 percent since 2000, while household income has risen by only four percent over the same period, according to a report by the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.
On the ritzy Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard, rent prices have reached such staggering levels that doctors and nurses are leaving in droves because they simply can't afford to live on the luxury enclave.
Martha's Vineyard Hospital President Denise Schepici said that one of their 'greatest challenges' is simply 'keeping people housed' - and the non-profit hospital has had to start paying for affordable housing units just to retain staffing levels.
Healey's administration has described the housing crisis as 'the state's greatest challenge', and it signed the Affordable Homes Act into law.
The act 'authorizes a record $2 billion for the repair, rehabilitation and modernization of the state's public housing portfolio', per Healey's release - but polls suggest residents don't think it's having enough impact.
Massachusetts residents are also feeling a hit to their wallets from another angle - tax increases imposed by Healey's administration.
In January, the Democrat leadership slipped a series of tax increases into her fiscal year 2026 budget, which impacted products like candy, synthetic nicotine products, and excise tax on complimentary hotel rooms.
The budget also amounted to a 7.4 percent increase in overall spending compared with the fiscal year 2025 plan which was signed into law last summer - something the administration did not acknowledge.
In March, Healey's administration went further by slapping additional taxes on prescription drugs - a move which was met with 'staggering disapproval' from residents, according to a Fiscal Alliance Foundation poll.
The cost of living in Massachusetts is much higher than the national average. In the state's priciest city, Nantucket, the cost of living is 132 percent higher than the rest of the US, according to Rent Cafe.
Bostonians tend to pay 47 percent more than the national average on the basics like rent and food, while people in Framingham pay 36 percent more, and Leominster residents spend 14 percent more on average.
Massachusetts is also under strain from an influx of migrants who are sent to overcrowded centers where crime has been rife, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities has recorded 316 'serious incident' reports at hotels, congregate sites, scattered sites and co-shelters within the program from January 2022 until December 2024.
In May 2024, Healey was forced to convert a former prison into a shelter for homeless people, many of whom are migrants.
Almost 4,000 people were granted asylum in the New England state in 2023 - or 20 percent of those who applied, according to US Custom and Border Protection data.
The number of migrants on the Massachusetts emergency shelter system swelled to 3,500 by mid-December, figures show. Many of those without a place to go have been camping out at Logan International Airport in Boston.