MA-Gov: State Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz announced Thursday that she was dropping out of the September Democratic primary, a move that leaves Attorney General Maura Healey as Team Blue’s only remaining contender in the contest to succeed retiring Republican Gov. Charlie Baker. Hours later, UMass Amherst publicized a YouGov survey that showed Healey beating the state senator 53-20, a finding that reinforced Chang-Díaz’s declaration that “there is no path that I can responsibly, in good faith, lead my supporters on that results in me becoming governor this year.” Chang-Díaz will remain on the ballot, though, as the deadline passed several weeks ago for her to withdraw.
Healey, along with Oregon Democrat Tina Kotek, would be the first lesbian to serve as governor of any state, but Healey already had a far easier task than her West Coast counterpart even before Chang-Díaz dropped out. A different YouGov survey released earlier this week for UMass Lowell showed Healey easily beating each of the two Republican candidates, former state Rep. Geoff Diehl and businessman Chris Doughty, by margins of 61-30 and 58-30, respectively. (Kotek, by contrast, is locked in a very competitive three-way general election.)
A Healey victory would also give Democrats a pickup in a state where the electorate is fond of sending moderate-sounding Republicans to the governor’s office (Massachusetts is one of just five states that doesn’t provide its chief executive with an official residence) to balance out Team Blue’s control of most other major posts: Republicans have won six of the eight most recent gubernatorial elections, with Democrat Deval Patrick’s 2006 and 2010 wins (the latter against Baker) marking the only breaks in that streak. It’s possible that the self-funding Doughty, a self-described “pragmatic, common sense, businessman, fiscally conservative” candidate, could put up a fight he makes it through the GOP primary against the Trump-endorsed Diehl, though those YouGov numbers indicate he’d still start deep in the hole.
Healey would additionally make history as the first woman elected governor of Massachusetts: Republican Jane Swift became acting governor in 2001 when Paul Cellucci left to become ambassador to Canada, but she didn’t run in the 2002 contest that Mitt Romney ultimately won. The Democrat is also on track to become one of the rare non-incumbents to win a governor’s race anywhere without having to beat any prominent opponents in either a primary or general election.