Politics

Baker fails to gain ground in state GOP

Insiders say big spending didn’t yield results

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COMPLETE ELECTION RESULTS were still not available last night, but Republican insiders said Gov. Charlie Baker appeared to lose ground Tuesday night in his bid to seize control of the Massachusetts Republican Party.

The insiders said Baker forces failed to increase their representation among the 80 state committee officials elected Tuesday night and may have even lost ground to candidates loyal to GOP party chairman Jim Lyons. Lyons, a President Trump supporter, stunned the Baker forces in 2019 by winning the party chairmanship by a margin of 47-30.

Ed Lyons, a Republican activist and Baker supporter, conducted his own analysis of the state committee races on Twitter Wednesday and concluded the trendlines were not favorable for the governor. “Yes, there are members in the middle, and it’s hard to count, but I believe that Governor Baker’s influence on our MassGOP State Committee weakened last night, and Trump’s strengthened, despite the massive resources spent to move the party closer to actual voters,” Lyons tweeted.

Several other insiders said they reached the same conclusion, although they said all of the votes haven’t been counted officially yet.

State committee campaigns are not regulated, so it’s impossible to track how much was spent and by whom. But many insiders say the Baker forces spent considerable amounts of money supporting candidates with mailings, phone banks, and ads. The pro-Lyons forces mobilized against pro-Baker candidates as well.

One race where the infighting became pretty intense was between Patricia Saint Aubin of Norfolk and Catherine Roman of Attleborough. Sources say the pro-Lyons forces went after Roman with all sorts of misleading accusations, while the pro-Baker forces targeted Saint Aubin, the incumbent committee woman from Norfolk. A mailing targeting Saint Aubin accused her of breaking a series of promises to Republicans and held her responsible for the loss in 2018 of the Senate seat held by Republican Richard Ross. The mailer even featured a sketch of Trump saying, “Patty, you’re fired.”

Saint Aubin, a Trump supporter, said she couldn’t believe the negative and misleading tone of the mailing. “It’s very sleazy,” she said. “These are Republicans we’re running against.”

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Bruce Mohl

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About Bruce Mohl

Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.

About Bruce Mohl

Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.

Saint Aubin appears to have prevailed, narrowly edging Roman, by a margin of just 46 votes, 3,177 to 3,131, according to party officials.

At a press conference Wednesday on state efforts to prepare for the coronavirus, Baker declined to take questions on other matters, saying he wanted to keep the focus on the virus.

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