Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl faces reporters outside the Statehouse, in Boston, Monday, March 21, 2022.
Charles Krupa/AP Photo
Massachusetts presents a political conundrum for Republicans: Its voters handed Trump some of his biggest losses in both of his presidential bids. Yet the same Democrats and independents that resoundingly rejected Trump have repeatedly sent fiscally conservative and socially moderate Republicans like Baker and Bill Weld to the governor’s office for the better part of 30 years.
The state GOP seems to be done with that, and has become increasingly pro-Trump under conservative Chair Jim Lyons. Polls showed Diehl could have beaten Baker, who’s more popular with Democrats and independents than among members of his own party, in a Republican primary.
After initially veering away from Trump, Diehl largely embraced the former president and his rhetoric, going so far as to falsely claim the 2020 election was “rigged.” Diehl went on to win the party’s endorsement for governor at its spring convention — where Thomas Homan, Trump’s former border czar, was a featured speaker — by an overwhelming 71 percent. And he leads Doughty by comfortable margins in the few Republican primary polls available.
Republicans make up less than 10 percent of registered voters in Massachusetts. And Trumpism has proven a hard sell to independents, who make up 57 percent of the state’s voters, and Democrats, who comprise 32 percent.
Diehl promotes “an extreme conservatism” that “just isn’t going to connect with independent voters,” Sununu told reporters after fundraising with Doughty at a hotel in Peabody Wednesday night. “I don’t think voters are going to believe that he can really work across the aisle in the effective way that you need to with the Democrats [that control] the Legislature.”
Sununu and his team insist that his support for Doughty has nothing to do with the fact that Trump, with whom the New Hampshire governor has a complicated relationship, endorsed Diehl. Or that Lewandowski, who called for Sununu’s ouster, is advising Diehl’s campaign.
Trump’s endorsement, Sununu contends, “doesn’t really matter to voters.”
Wendy Wakeman, a Republican strategist in Massachusetts who’s working on a GOP-led ballot initiative and is neutral in the primary, disagrees.
“Trump’s endorsement matters to Republican primary voters,” she said in an interview. “Those are the people that both Geoff Diehl and Chris Doughty need to be concerned with in August.”
In the war over whether Trumpism should be the Republican Party’s past or its future, Sununu represents the former and Noem the latter.
The South Dakota governor — who, like Sununu, is up for reelection this year — hasn’t ruled out a 2024 presidential bid if Trump doesn’t run. And if he’s in, she’s considered a potential vice presidential pick.
It was Lewandowski, Trump’s longtime adviser, who connected Diehl and Noem for next week’s fundraiser and campaign events, Diehl’s campaign manager, Amanda Orlando, said.
Noem, in a statement, called Diehl an “exciting candidate who offers a unique blend of conserative credentials, credible legislative experience and practical work in the private sector.”
Diehl in turn praised Noem’s handling of the pandemic, calling the governor who resisted lockdowns and rebuffed mask and vaccine mandates “one of the few leaders in our nation to keep her people safe and keep her state open for business.”
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 25, 2022.