Source: Politics<\/p>\n
BOSTON \u2014 Gov. Charlie Baker kept Republicans relevant in deep-blue Massachusetts. Now his exit has the GOP at each others’ throats.<\/p>\n
Baker announced this week that he wouldn\u2019t seek a third term. But with no heir apparent \u2014 giving Democrats their clearest shot at the corner office in a decade \u2014 his fellow moderate Republicans are scrambling to find someone to battle a Donald Trump-backed conservative in the 2022 primary.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a battle for the soul of the party,\u201d former GOP state party chair Jennifer Nassour, a Baker ally, said in an interview. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t think it was while there was still hope that Charlie was going to run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republicans have clung to relevancy in this bluest of blue state through a long line of moderate governors, including one-time presidential nominee and sitting Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who appealed across party lines even as Democratic supermajorities in the state Legislature continued to grow.<\/p>\n
But Trump\u2019s rise splintered the party, pitting a popular governor who repudiated Trump against a conservative state party chair who embraced the former president and his rhetoric. Now that power struggle is turning into an all-out war without Baker or Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, who also passed on a 2022 run, to keep things in check.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Massachusetts GOP is, in my estimation, in a bad place \u2014 riddled with conflict, declining membership, declining coffers and declining representation in the state Legislature. And now we just lost the two things we could point to proudly,\u201d said Anthony Amore, a former Republican nominee for secretary of state. \u201cRight now, things seem like we\u2019re in a real fight for our existence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump changed the GOP calculus in Massachusetts by energizing voters who typically sat out elections. It\u2019s a popularity that\u2019s engendered a fierce loyalty among voters in what was traditionally a more moderate-leaning primary electorate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe litmus test for a lot of voters became are you with him or against him, and it still is,\u201d former Massachusetts GOP political director John Milligan said in an interview. \u201cHe changed the battlefield for any primary going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
But some Republicans argue it fast-tracked the party, already less than 10 percent of the Massachusetts electorate, further into obscurity. <\/p>\n
Baker, the governor since 2015, stood tall as a moderate firewall against the growing pro-Trump sentiment within his party in a state where the president was \u2014 and still is \u2014 wildly unpopular. He said he blanked his ballot for president in 2016 and 2020 so as not to vote for Trump and emerged as a vocal critic of the former president\u2019s handling of the pandemic. He supported Trump\u2019s second impeachment and rejected his false claims of election fraud \u2014 leading Trump to knock him as a RINO and endorse conservative former state Rep. Geoff Diehl’s 2022 run for governor.<\/p>\n
Baker allies and political observers dismissed the endorsement: Trump got drubbed twice in Massachusetts general elections, and candidates who\u2019ve hewed too closely to his messaging have met the same fate.<\/p>\n
But polls showed the twice-elected Baker faced significant political headwinds in a GOP primary against Diehl, to the point one pollster even tested his path forward as an independent. When Baker bowed out of the 2022 contest this week, Trump, Diehl and their allies danced on Baker\u2019s political grave even as the governor insisted the endorsement hadn\u2019t shaken him \u201cat all.\u201d<\/p>\n