“I’ve got a bone to pick with Trump when it comes to tariffs,” said Brian Shortsleeve in an interview with us last week.
Uh-oh. That quote could lead Shortsleeve’s political obituary if the polls showing Mike Minogue cruising to a landslide victory over him next week in the GOP gubernatorial primary are accurate, another tombstone inscription in the graveyard of what Massachusetts Republicans were in the PT era.
PT: pre-Trump. Despite a litany of damage done to the Massachusetts economy by Trump’s tariffs, funding cuts, immigration policies etc., his approval rating among Republicans is 74% in a recent UMass poll, down from the post-inaugural heights of 89% but still massive. In a June Suffolk poll, 43% of likely GOP primary voters said Minogue is more aligned with Trump; only 6% said Shortsleeve was.
No disrespect to Minogue, who has an impressive resume and has put his money where his mouth is. But it’s hard to argue his big lead isn’t padded by the extreme Trump addiction that drives scores of Republicans to ignore electability.
Shortsleeve, an acknowledged Trump voter in 2024 after a flirtation with Ron DeSantis, is hardly a Never Trumper, or even as critical of him as presumptive GOP Senate nominee John Deaton. After complaining about the Trump tariffs in our conversation, he praised the president’s efforts to seal the border, deregulate, and cut taxes.
Still, Shortsleeve wears the scarlet letters: CB, for Charlie Baker. Being a Baker administration alumnus renders him anathema to the right-wing geniuses who excommunicated the most popular Republican in the state. Factor in the hapless candidacy of another Baker-era figure, Mike Kennealy, who couldn’t even muster 15% of the meager GOP State Convention crowd, and it’s clear the bad blood continues.
Toward what end? A tough economy with a wicked housing-and-energy-cost squeeze gives the Republicans plenty to work with. Anti-establishment ballot questions seem to be thriving. Federal races this cycle were bound to be a referendum on Trump, but the governor’s race is different. Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci, Mitt Romney and Baker all thrived in an era of deep local antipathy toward the national GOP.
Massachusetts Republicans have a nasty orange rash over 74% of their skin, and Cyndi Lauper isn’t walking through that door with a remedy. Scratching the itch might make you feel better temporarily, but the serotonin it releases makes the pain worse. (Same goes for Democratic primary voters indulging themselves by nominating sketchy left-wingers.)
Shortsleeve ended our interview with a likely-fruitless appeal to independents — who are considerably less-enamored of Trump, with only 29% approving in the UMass poll — to take a Republican ballot and support him. But while (cliche warning) the only poll that counts is the one on Election Day and (warning moved to high alert) you never say never, it’s worth wondering what it says when an appealing, well-qualified candidate, fiscally conservative but socially moderate in the mold of past Republican success stories here, can’t get to first base with the GOP electorate?
Should Minogue lose big in November as the polls currently suggest, there’s an answer — it says too many local Republicans are seized by a political death wish.
But hey, free country, go for it. It’s your funeral
