As Gov. Baker leaves office what's next for the state Republican Party?

When Gov. Charlie Baker walks down the Statehouse steps for the final time in January, he will turn his focus to a new challenge as president of the NCAA. But what is the future of the Massachusetts Republican Party after he gives up the keys to the Corner Office to Democrat Maura Healey?

When Baker announced last December that he would not seek a third term, polling by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and WCVB-TV found the moderate Republican was more popular with registered Democrats in the state at 65%, compared to only 41% among Republican voters.

The lack of support Baker received from his own party could have been one of the major reasons he did not seek reelection, said Erin O’Brien, associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

“Baker, as a Republican governor, had major, positive approval in a solidly blue state, but there could have been few issues. On the one hand, he was not financially interested in holding this position and being in public service. Besides, Baker had to deal with the COVID pandemic chaos, which must have been understandably tiring. And lastly, he knew getting the Republican nomination would not be easy,” said O’Brien.

“It is a terrible idea to run as an independent candidate in American politics. I think he did not need the genuine fatigue of contesting in the GOP primary, making his case between the moderate Republicanism and Trump Republicanism, especially after handling the challenging pandemic period in the state.”

Baker’s complicated relationship with former President Donald Trump was at the heart of his lack of popularity with Massachusetts Republicans. O’Brien said Baker’s efforts to detach his campaign and governing approach from Trump’s administration may have gradually pushed the state GOP in an opposite direction and gamble with Trump-endorsed Geoff Diehl, a conservative former state representative and a failed U.S. Senate candidate.

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Diehl lost to Healey, getting only 34.9% of the voters’ support.

“It is a Bible strategy that parties use a lot. They try to expand the tent, sometimes either because they feel electorally threatened or because they are just not in the competition,” said O’Brien. “It was not a terrible bet. It would be a fair bet in a different state. There were offices that Democrats have never held in Massachusetts that went to Democrats. That is why Republicans tried a new strategy, tested the idea whether there was a taste of Trumpism in Massachusetts, and that taste was not satisfied.”

On Cape Cod, a Republican stronghold in 2016, Democrats won the Barnstable County Sheriff, Cape and Islands District Attorney and the 1st Barnstable state representative races. Robert Galibois is the first Democratic district attorney since the office opened about 50 years ago and Donna Buckley is the first woman sheriff in Cape history.

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Republican 1st Barnstable District state Rep. Tim Whelan vacated his seat to run for sheriff, and Democrat Chris Flanagan won the race for that seat. In 2020, Kip Diggs, a Democrat, beat Republican state Rep. William Crocker of Centerville. Diggs was reelected last month.

According to statistics from the Secretary of the Commonwealth, registered Republican voters have been steadily shrinking, while the number of unenrolled voters is gradually increasing. By October, there were 437,211 registered Republicans, 22,452 voters less than in February 2021. The number of unenrolled voters spiked from 2, 717,293 to 2,951,863 in the same period.

O’Brien said that the MassGOP, under Diehl and his fellow Republicans, might be thinking that this is a long-term proposition. Although they got “slaughtered” in 2022, the reasoning might be that they will be a palatable alternative over time.

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“There are two visions of the MassGOP. There is the vision of Mitt Romney, Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci, and Charlie Baker, who are fiscally conservative and socially moderate and have worked with the state Legislature by being independent and having a constant check on all Democratic state Legislatures, etc.

“The other vision is to follow Mega Trumpism, which is certainly the way the national party has gone,” said O’Brien. “The most recent slate decided that moderates are not enough, and GOP needs to decide which vision they want to be in. They think that in order to win long-term, they need to build a truly credible difference with the Democrats.”

The party is inching toward a decision. Chairman Jim Lyons, who many blame for the rightward direction – and continued loss of legislative seats – has not officially announced whether he will seek another term, although he recently penned a fund-raising letter suggesting he will. Meanwhile, other Republicans are considering a challenge.

In the interview with CNN, Baker said that Trump’s influence hurt the Republican Party’s chances in this year’s midterm elections, in Massachusetts and many of those other battleground states. But the voters demonstrated that they were not interested in extremism,

O’Brien said that after the last election, MassGOP political strength went from weak to abysmal, and the party will not be having an impactful comeback anytime soon.

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“For the 2024 presidential elections, Massachusetts cannot get any bluer. The governor will not be up for reelection, and the Massachusetts congressional delegation is already all blue, so it will be harder for the Republican Party,” said O’Brien.

“But Trump’s impact will be twofold. His connection to Diehl might push him to throw some resources towards Massachusetts to support the party, even though we have almost reached the ceiling on how blue you can be in terms of elected office. Trump rewards loyalty and Diehl has been loyal. However, it will be tough for them as the state has shown that they do not have a taste for Trump and Trump-style politics.”

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Dwindling MA Republican Party at a crossroads after midterm elections