Mass. Republicans endorse Diehl for governor
Photo | State House News Service
Geoff Diehl (right) received 849 delegate votes at the 2022 Massachusetts Republican Nominating Convention on May 21 in Springfield, while Chris Doughty received 345 delegates. Both were enough to qualify for the primary ballot.
At Saturday's Republican Party convention, a common thread seemed to course through the comments of speakers backing the Chris Doughty-Kate Camapanale ticket for the corner office.
Without mentioning him by name, those behind the Doughty-Campanale campaign seemed to be tweaking Geoff Diehl, a former state representative who has been defeated in both of his last two contested elections.
While Diehl walked out of the MassMutual Center as the party's endorsed candidate for governor and while Doughty has no win-loss record as a candidate, speakers seemed to at least indirectly refer to Diehl's recent losses as they tried to make the argument that Doughty, not Diehl, is best positioned to pull votes from independent voters.
"We have to win," shouted Campanale, a former state representative who secured ballot access in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor. "We cannot come in second and pat ourselves on the back for a good effort. There is too much at stake to repeat the mistakes of the past and I'm asking for your vote today because we have the team to win."
Camapanale did come in second in her own last election, losing a 2018 bid to become Worcester County register of deeds to Democrat Kathryn Toomey, but she focused her remarks to delegates on her 2014 campaign for state rep.
In that contest, she said, the Worcester-based district was "deep blue" as most registered voters there were Democrats. Campanale, who now lives in Spencer, said the pundits gave her a 6 percent chance of winning.
"I remember thinking, 'So you're telling me I have a chance,'" said Campanale, who squeaked out a 43-vote win over Democrat Douglas Belanger and then was reelected in 2016.
Rep. Joe McKenna, who introduced Campanale in Springfield, recalled her winning 2014 and 2016 campaigns, noting she prevailed in 2016 despite the headwinds kicked up by that year's presidential election.
"From the very beginning of her career, Kate's been told she can't win," McKenna said. "Each challenge was met with perseverance, with hard work, and with success."
Former Rep. Shaunna O'Connell of Taunton nominated Doughty. In doing so, she also surfaced electability issues, noting she defeated Democrat Rep. James Fagan in 2010 and then won election as the Republican mayor of Taunton.
"I know what it takes to win in a blue city," O'Connell said. "I know what it takes to turn blue districts red. And I know what it takes to win in Massachusetts. I am proud to nominate a candidate who can win in November, Chris Doughty."
The News Service caught up with Diehl at a press conference he held outside the State House Monday and asked him about losing his last two contests and Saturday's comments about the electability of Doughty and Campanale.
"Well, you can't win if you don't try," Diehl said. "But I think I've won more races than I've lost."
Diehl has won four state rep races, including the one sandwiched in between his 2015 Senate special election loss to Brockton Democrat Sen. Mike Brady and the 2018 race in which he was trounced by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren but also racked up nearly 1 million votes of his own from people all over Massachusetts.
"Certainly, my goal is to try to make sure that Massachusetts is a state that we can afford to live in," Diehl said. "And my work in 2018 on that Senate race, I was proud to step up and run when other people wouldn't run. And I think that my record in the Legislature is going to be important to get out there, not my record when it comes to elections. But yeah, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you learn from those races. And I think that we learned a lot in 2018, and we're going to be able to bring a lot more to this campaign than we did back then."
"The Biden Economy"
At his Monday news conference, Diehl likened his 71 percent of votes at the convention to the level of support Gov. Charlie Baker enjoyed four years ago, saying he was "excited" by that similarity.
"Happy to take the mantle and keep running with some of the work [Baker] was trying to get done before," he added.
Baker netted around 70 percent of delegates against challenger Scott Lively at the 2018 MassGOP Convention. Diehl garnered 849 delegate votes on Saturday to Doughty's 345.
Diehl said he felt that Republicans of all stripes will "be coming back together" by the time this year's primary is over, and he sees "a lot of strong support in the middle" headed his way.
As he looks ahead to a primary fight against Doughty, who is partially funding his campaign with infusions from his personal fortune, Diehl brought up his 2018 primary contest against John Kingston, whose race was also partially self-funded.
"You remember John Kingston who ran against me in 2018, right? Did you see how much he spent against me in that campaign? He spent about 6 million dollars," said Diehl, who topped Kingston and Beth Lindstrom in a three-way primary with 55.2 percent of the vote. Kingston received 26.7 percent, Lindstrom 17.9 percent.
Coming off the GOP jamboree in Springfield, he said that the rhetoric at conventions can be "hyperbolic" and disavowed a comment made from the convention stage by state secretary candidate Rayla Campbell. Diehl called the comment, which involved a sex act and young children, "inappropriate."
Diehl is former President Donald Trump's pick in the governor's race, but he avoided talking about the 45th president Monday.
Asked about what sort of role Trump was playing in the race, he responded, "Actually, current President Biden is playing a huge role in this race right now."
"I mean, look at the economy. Inflation right now is affecting every single thing. Availability of -- supply chain problems. Cost of groceries, cost of gas," Diehl said, adding that "the Biden economy is going to be a major factor in this campaign."
Diehl said he wants to improve the affordability of living in the Bay State in part by "unlock[ing]" new regions for housing development aided by South Coast and East-West commuter rail lines.
And with gas prices in Massachusetts hitting an average of $4.73 per gallon Monday, he raised his work on a successful 2014 ballot question to repeal a law that would have tied automatic gas tax hikes to the rate of inflation.
"If I hadn't done the gas tax ballot question in 2014," he said, "tying it to inflation, can you imagine where it'd be right now?"
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