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Charlie Baker indicates he won’t run for re-election as an independent
"I believe in my brand of Republicanism."
It’s still unclear if Gov. Charlie Baker plans to run for a third term. But if he does, the moderate Republican says it won’t be as an independent candidate.
After a poll last week suggested that the popular Massachusetts governor might have a clearer shot at re-election as an independent, Baker said on GBH radio that it’s a “reasonable assumption to make” he’ll run as a Republican, if at all.
“I’ve been a Republican for most of my — well, almost all of my adult life, and I believe in my brand of Republicanism,” Baker said Monday, after “Boston Public Radio” host Jim Braude asked if he would consider running as an independent.
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Baker, who said Monday that he’s “pretty close” to deciding whether he’ll seek re-election, faces a potentially difficult Republican primary against Geoff Diehl, a former state representative who’s been endorsed by Donald Trump.
As a socially moderate if temperamentally conservative technocrat, Baker has increasingly clashed with the Trump-adoring factions that have increased their power over the Republican Party, especially over COVID-19 pandemic rules and restrictions. And multiple polls show Baker to be “deeply underwater” with Republican voters, despite his relatively high approval rating among independents and Democrats.
Additionally, last week, a poll commissioned by the Democratic-leaning political consulting group Northwind Strategies suggested that Baker may have a better shot of winning the general election in a three-way race with Diehl and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, compared to his odds in a one-on-one race against Healey, who’s also considering a run for governor.
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However, Baker said Monday that he’s “never run for anything based on whether or not I thought I could win — period.”
“When I ran for the Select Board in Swampscott, I had all my friends telling me, ‘Oh, don’t run for the Select Board; if you lose, then you’ll never be able to run for governor,'” he told GBH. “I was like, I really wanted to do it, so I ran, and thankfully, I won. And when I got into the race in 2010, Governor [Deval] Patrick and Treasurer [Tim] Cahill were both already in the race. And I had all kinds of people saying to me, ‘Don’t do that. You’re running against two statewide office holders, name ID, blah, blah, blah.’ And I did it, and I lost. And then in 2014, I had all kinds of people telling me, ‘You’re a loser. Why would you bother to run and lose again?’ … But I felt I had something to say and something to offer, and I ran, and, you know, we won by about 40,000 votes.”
Baker continued: “I don’t sit around and say to myself, you know, ‘Can I win or not?'”
Rather, he said the question was whether he has “the desire and the agenda that I believe would be in the state’s best interest” as well as the “energy and the commitment to follow through and deliver on it.”
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Later in the interview, Baker, who turned 65 on Nov. 13, added that he plans to continue working late into life — corner office or not.
“I’ve always said that I’m one of these people who’s gonna want to be purposeful and productive as long as I can be purposeful and productive,” he said. “I don’t have any hobbies. … I read books. That’s probably the only hobby I have. I don’t golf. I don’t boat. I don’t do any of that. I don’t fish. I don’t do any of that stuff. So — and my wife would lose her mind if I didn’t have something useful to do. So I have a feeling I’m going to be hopefully working for a while.”
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