Massachusetts GOP Divided Over Choice of Gubernatorial Nominee Ahead of Tuesday’s Primary

With the state’s midterm primary election approaching on Sept. 6, Massachusetts Republicans are divided over their choice of who to nominate for gubernatorial races.

Primary voters will on Tuesday be choosing between former state representative Geoff Diehl, a conservative pro-life Republican who proudly touts the endorsement of Donald Trump, and successful businessman Chris Doughty, a pro-choice Republican and self-prescribed pragmatist, who has made it clear that he does not align with Trump.

In November, one of them will face ultra-liberal Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who is not facing a primary challenge.

In a recent interview with The Epoch Times, Diehl and Doughty said they believe Healey’s overly-woke principles may be self-defeating enough to put another Republican in the governor’s seat in the otherwise blue state of Massachusetts.

“She believes in her own personal ideology and that it is way more important than serving a balanced agenda that serves the entire state and its population,” Diehl told The Epoch Times about Healey, who has decried pregnancy support centers as dangerous and has called for more drag queen events to be held in schools.

Doughty expressed a similar sentiment, saying that Healey would turn Massachusetts into a statewide San Francisco with her vow to be the most progressive governor in America.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announces the state will join a lawsuit challenging then President Donald Trump’s executive order travel ban in Boston, Mass., on Jan. 31, 2017. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

But outside of a unanimous target on Healey’s campaign, Diehl, 53, and Doughty, 59, have a starkly different support base within the party.

Doughty, who has thrown more than $2 million of his own money behind his campaign, won an endorsement from The Boston Globe, which promoted editorially that “reasonable” Republicans should vote for him if they want to save the party