Middleboro Review 2: POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook: Haley’s Massachusetts Hail Mary

Monday, March 4, 2024

POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook: Haley’s Massachusetts Hail Mary

‘KEEP THE FAITH’ — Nikki Haley stumped through New England overt weekend with a plea for voters to head to the polls on Tuesday to breathe new life into a presidential campaign that’s almost out of oxygen.

New England — and Massachusetts in particular — should be fertile ground for Haley. Each of the three New England states voting on Super Tuesday have open or semi-open primaries with large swaths of the independent voters her campaign is actively working to court.

And so Haley breezed through the Bay State on Saturday to collect campaign cash and to deliver her pitch to a packed ballroom in Needham, where she called for her supporters to “keep the faith” and turn out on Tuesday “because there’s a lot of us — and they can’t just ignore all of us.”

Nikki Haley campaigning at the Sheraton in Needham on Saturday, March 2. | Sophie Park/Getty Images

But there's a passionate MAGA base standing in her way here. Several dozen supporters of Donald Trump staged a rolling rally through Boston’s waterfront on Sunday, flags promoting the former president flying high off the backs of pickup trucks. Trump has won the last two GOP presidential primaries here, and a Suffolk University poll last month showed him beating Haley 55 percent to 38 percent in this one. If Haley can’t keep Trump under 50 percent of the vote — a tall order in a two-person race — she won’t win any of Massachusetts’ 40 delegates.

Haley does have some wind in her sails heading into the slate of 16 contests that will award more than two-thirds of the GOP delegates. She picked up her first win on Sunday in Washington, D.C.’s primary . She raised $12 million in February. She campaigned through the weekend with some of the region’s most prominent Republicans — former Gov. Bill Weld and former MassGOP Chair Jennifer Nassour spoke at a pre-rally fundraiser for Haley in Needham, while New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and Vermont Gov. Phil Scott introduced her at rallies.

She's also notched new support from GOP senators in two Super Tuesday states. (Haley on Sunday thanked Maine’s Susan Collins for “showing the fellas that you’ve got more balls than them.”)

Still, Haley is likely to lose across the map on Tuesday . She won’t say what happens if she wakes up Wednesday morning without a win, only that she’ll continue to fight on as long as she’s “competitive.”

And even as Sununu projected confidence when he introduced Haley in Needham — “You guys can throw gasoline on that fire and really, really show the rest of the country that we ain’t over by a long shot,” he told the crowd — her supporters from Massachusetts to Maine cast doubts in interviews about her ability to pull off another victory.

Tom Hodgson, the former Bristol County sheriff who is again chairing Trump’s campaign in Massachusetts, said that “if [Haley] doesn’t have a chance" after Super Tuesday, "our country is better served by being unified” behind the former president.

Haley’s not the only one who could face a reckoning once the votes are tallied Tuesday night.

Pro-Palestinian activists in this state are urging Democratic primary voters to fill in “no preference” on their ballots to protest President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict, mimicking the movement that led to more than 100,000 “uncommitted” votes in Michigan .

Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered by the hundreds Saturday outside Cambridge City Hall, ahead of Tuesday's primary. | Kelly Garrity/POLITICO

They also shut down a stretch of Massachusetts Avenue in front of Cambridge City Hall on Saturday to call for a cease-fire in Gaza and to bash Biden — dubbed “Genocide Joe” by the chanting crowd — for continuing to provide financial aid to Israel.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday reiterated the administration's call for a six-week cease-fire. But at the demonstration on Saturday, former Massachusetts Teachers Association President Merrie Najimy accused Biden and Harris of being less focused on the “interest of humanity” and more on protecting “their purse and their election. … So let’s hit them there, where it hurts.”

GOOD MONDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. Days after Gov. Maura Healey swiped at Sununu for pushing to send New Hampshire National Guard members to the Texas border, Sununu vaguely jabbed at both Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu — though neither by name — to boos in the Needham ballroom. Haley piled on in an interview with NBC10 Boston .

TODAY — Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll have no public events. Wu is on WBUR’s “Radio Boston” at 11 a.m. Secretary of State Bill Galvin holds a pre-primary media availability at 10:30 a.m. at the State House library.

Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Jim McGovern celebrate federal funding for electric school buses at 2 p.m. at the Worcester Bus Depot.

Have a race we should be watching on Tuesday? Drop us a line: lkashinsky@politico.com and kgarrity@politico.com.

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BALLOT BATTLES

BATTLE LINES DRAWN — The state’s largest teachers union is on a collision course with Gov. Maura Healey over whether to end MCAS as a high school graduation requirement.

Healey’s education secretary, Patrick Tutwiler , came out against the Massachusetts Teachers Association-backed ballot question in an interview on WBZ’s “Keller at Large.”

“I support the idea of there being ... a state standard for high school graduation,” Tutwiler said. The ballot question “would deliver us to a place of no standard — essentially 351 different standards for high school graduation. I don’t believe that is the direction to go, the governor does not believe that is the direction to go. And so, no, I do not support it.”

But Max Page, president of the MTA, argues that’s not what would happen. Districts would be in charge of determining whether a student is eligible to graduate “based on [existing] state standards” that shape curriculum and course assessments, Page told Playbook in an exclusive interview. “This is a far better way of understanding student achievement than a one-time test score.”

Both sides say they’re open to discussing alternatives. “Could it be a different assessment? Absolutely. Should assessment evolve and maybe look different ways? Absolutely. And I’m more than open to that conversation,” Tutwiler said on Keller’s show. Page said Tutwiler previously “asked us to be open to these conversations, so we are going to be.”

But it’s likely no accident the Healey administration took a public stand against the ballot question just as the teachers union heads to Beacon Hill today to argue its case before lawmakers who are weighing whether to act on a host of ballot initiatives .

The governor is growing more comfortable engaging in thorny policy fights . She’s already gone up against the teachers union once this year, when she involved her administration in ending the Newton teachers strike. And she’s already said she doesn’t support legalizing teacher strikes, another one of the MTA’s goals.

But the state’s largest teachers union has become its own political force over the past decade, fueled by successes in past ballot battles — including felling the 2016 ballot effort to expand charter schools and passing the so-called millionaires tax in 2022 to funnel more money toward education — and the reenergizing of the broader labor movement.

“We are much more willing to lead rank-and-file , powerful campaigns at the local level, and also lead big campaigns for schools and colleges — but also for the common good — at the state level,” Page said.

Case in point: The MTA will arrive on Beacon Hill today with more than 300 written testimonies in support of its proposed ballot question and with the support of National Education Association President Becky Pringle , who’s flying in to speak before state lawmakers.

“We have shown ourselves to be able to win , and will commit the human and financial resources to be able to win our top priorities,” Page said. “If we have to, we are fully prepared to go to the ballot to win this."

DATELINE BEACON HILL

ECON DEV FILED — Healey finally filed her $3.5 billion economic development borrowing bill that calls for $1 billion to reauthorize the state’s life sciences initiative for another decade and another $1 billion to launch a similar climate-tech initiative.

Among the other proposed investments : $400 million for MassWorks, $25 million for a robotics investment program, $10 million per year for a pilot program that would provide companies with financial incentives for hiring interns from Massachusetts-based colleges, a testing program for public electric-vehicle charging stations and a $5 million-per-year live theater tax credit pilot program.

STEWARD IN THE HOT SEAT — Lawmakers are looking to crack down on Steward Health Care and its for-profit model as the private health care network falters in Massachusetts.

Senate President Karen Spilka, House Speaker Ron Mariano and their health care financing chairs are planning an informational hearing “in the coming weeks” on the role of private equity in the state’s health care system. The goal, they said in a statement, is to “solicit information and recommendations to ensure what is happening with Steward Health Care doesn’t happen again in the future.”

And Sen. Ed Markey, fresh off a Friday tour of Steward’s Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, announced the Senate subcommittee he chairs will hold a similar hearing in Boston on April 3.

— “The bomb-tossing bean counter,” by Gintautas Dumcius, CommonWealth Beacon: “A year and change into the job, [Auditor Diana] DiZoglio clearly chafes at some of its trappings, saying her new role has been ‘a lesson in patience.’ … ‘One thing I do miss about the Legislature is being able to take to the floor, at any given time and just say whatever I feel like saying about whatever issue of the day,’ she said. Of course, there are those who think that is exactly what she’s doing with her call to audit the Legislature. ‘This whole effort is just pure politics,’ [former Auditor Suzanne] Bump said.”

— “‘It’s an invasion.’ In towns across Eastern Mass., resistance grows against ambitious state housing law,” by Andrew Brinker, The Boston Globe.

— "Archaic prostitution laws can hold back those seeking to leave the trade, advocates say. A new bill seeks to change that," by Sean Cotter, The Boston Globe.

MUST READ!

— “Ralph de la Torre shuttled loads of contributions to GOP, Dems,” by Chris Van Buskirk, Boston Herald.

MIGRANTS IN MASSACHUSETTS

SEAPORT SHELTER A GO — The temporary overflow shelter site for migrant and homeless families that’s slated to open this week in Boston’s Fort Point will serve roughly 25 families a night. It’s expected to stay open through June, with the option to extend its use for another 90 days, according to Brigid Boyd of the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, which awarded a coalition of community groups money through a grant program seeded by the state to stand up the shelter.

On the ground in Albany. Get critical policy news and analysis inside New York State. Track how power brokers are driving change across legislation and budget and impacting lobbying efforts. Learn more .

FROM THE DELEGATION

TRAHAN JOINS CEASE-FIRE CALLS — Rep. Lori Trahan is the latest to call for a cease-fire in Gaza, saying it’s “desperately needed to halt the bloodshed, ensure the immediate release of Israeli hostages, surge humanitarian support for Palestinians in Gaza, and return to the hard work of achieving a viable two-state solution in the region.”

Israel “has been an important ally,” Trahan said in a statement. But the country’s “right to defend itself, like any nation, is not without bounds,” she continued. “The current situation — the deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinian families — is unacceptable, and it must stop without delay.”

HEARD ‘ROUND THE BUBBLAH

SPOTTED — Former Gov. Bill Weld being a good sport when a woman who stopped him for a picture while he was heading out of Nikki Haley ’s fundraiser in Needham mistook him for Sen. Ed Markey .

ALSO SPOTTED — People gathering signatures at Haley’s event to get John Deaton , a Republican running against Sen. Elizabeth Warren , on the ballot.

ALSO SPOTTED — Warren getting a pedicure in Cambridge over the weekend.

TRANSITIONS — Jennie Frishtick is now Northeast public affairs manager for Alstom. She was a government relations consultant.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY — to Lowell City Manager Thomas Golden, Josh Arnold, Sharon Block, former Gov. Charlie Baker’s ’18 campaign manager Brian Wynne, Chris Joyce, Chris Lane, Justin Backal Balik, Adam Boyajy, Gabrielle Meyerowitz, Tavo True-Alcalá and Tamsin True-Alcalá. Happy belated to Senate Court Officer Paul Dooley , who celebrated Friday.

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