Massachusetts Playbook
Kelly Garrity's must-read rundown of what's up on Beacon Hill and beyond.
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POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook:
Republicans meet the new media
VERY ONLINE — — Looking to woo their voting base with more than a year to go before people head to the polls, Massachusetts Republicans are turning to non-traditional media outlets to get their message out.
Republican gubernatorial hopeful Mike Kennealy kicked things off with a written Q&A on X last month with an anti-Michelle Wu social media account that’s amassed more than 45,000 followers, and fellow GOP challenger Brian Shortsleeve wasn’t far behind with his own.
Both have also turned to panels and interviews with Mike Urban, a realtor who has taken to talking about politics on his YouTube show.
“We're seeing a real shift in media and how media works to get your message out, especially this early in the campaign,” GOP strategist Wendy Wakeman told Playbook. The podcasters and social media personalities Republican candidates have been courting “really speak to a conservative audience, and that is the pond that our candidates want to be fishing in at the moment.”
Several conservative influencers have popped up in recent years and their popularity has exploded online, while the number and depth of local news outlets has dwindled.
The goal, Kennealy campaign spokesperson MASS GOP BLOVIATOR Logan Trupiano said, is to meet voters where they are, and those influencers are “speaking directly to Republican voters and talking about issues that are important to them that aren't necessarily covered in legacy media.”
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Shortsleeve sees it as a way to use “all means possible … to get out our positive message of reducing utility bills, lowering the tax burden, growing jobs, auditing the legislature, and ending the costly migrant crisis,” he said in a statement.
It’s a key demographic Republican candidates will need to win over if they want to make it out of the primary next year. And it's a voting base that’s lost trust in mainstream media, Wakeman pointed out.
“For a long time, conservatives have been claiming bias in the media, and that sort of general feeling among conservatives has given rise to these new media people who look at the issues and look at the debate with a similar eye toward the outcome as our candidates do,” Wakeman said.
GOOD FRIDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. Happy Friday!
TODAY — Gov. Maura Healey has no public events. Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll attends the High School Summer Career Academy in AI at 10:30 a.m. in Burlington. Rep. Seth Moulton speaks at a ribbon cutting to highlight an initiative to clean King’s Beach at 10 a.m. in Swampscott.
THIS WEEKEND — Rep. Seth Moulton is on NBC 10 Boston Weekend Today at 9:30 a.m. Sunday. Democratic Whip Katherine Clark is on WCVB’s “On the Record” at 11 a.m. Sunday.
Have a tip, story, suggestion, birthday, anniversary, new job, or any other nugget for the Playbook? Drop me a line: kgarrity@politico.com.
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DATELINE BEACON HILL
— ADL says it's tracking group that took credit for State House vandalism by Alison Kuznitz, State House News Service: “An anti-Zionist group claimed responsibility for the overnight vandalism at the State House gate Wednesday that drew a swarm of FBI agents to the scene, ADL New England reported. ‘We are deeply concerned by the escalating activity of an extreme anti-Zionist group in Boston which has taken responsibility for last night's vandalism of the MA State House with paint and feces,’ ADL New England said in a social media post late Wednesday afternoon without specifying the name of the group.”
FROM THE HUB
— Driverless cars run into resistance at Boston City Council by Saraya Wintersmith, GBH News: “Boston officials Thursday showed a mix of skepticism and opposition to driverless cars, suggesting that Waymo and other driverless car companies looking to operate in the city may struggle to get the green light. The comments came across a pair of events including a rally organized by the App Drivers Union, Teamsters Local 25 and other labor groups, and a four-hour city council committee hearing on autonomous vehicles potentially operating in Boston. Multiple voices slammed the presumed threat to rideshare jobs and to drivers who depend on that income.”
AT MASS & CASS — After the Boston Guardian reported earlier this week that a pair of Boston Globe reporters had to flee an incident at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, Boston Globe editor Nancy Barnes sent out an email to the newsroom addressing security, per Media Nation’s Dan Kennedy.
RELATED — Squatter treats South End family’s empty home as hotel as Boston’s Mass and Cass spillover escalates by Gayla Cawley, Boston Herald: “A South End family already grappling with Mass and Cass spillover was horrified to learn that a homeless intruder squatted in their home while they were away last weekend — bathing, eating their food, and sleeping in the main bedroom.”
MIGRANTS IN MASSACHUSETTS
— New Bedford Market Basket suspends 47 immigrants after I-9 audit by Kevin G. Andrade, The New Bedford Light: “Market Basket suspended dozens of workers from its store on Sawyer Street this week – a direct result of recent ‘operations’ by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to the Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, 47 workers at the New Bedford Market Basket were let go this week shortly after being asked to give Social Security cards they originally used to get their jobs. A spokesperson for Market Basket confirmed that it was the result of an ICE action.”
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PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES
— On massive bridge project for North Station trains, T chief ‘confident’ federal cash will come through by Jaime Moore-Carrillo, The Boston Globe: “MBTA officials on Thursday said the agency is chugging along with the rehabilitation of an aging and essential segment of Massachusetts’ rail network despite concerns about the fate of federal funding for the project. The agency’s board of directors agreed to pay design consultancy HDR Inc. about $62 million over seven years to help manage the reconstruction of North Station Draw One, an almost century-old bridge traversing the Charles River. The bridge’s two moveable spans link North Station to the entire northern half of the Commuter Rail and Amtrak’s Downeaster line.”
FROM THE DELEGATION
ON THE ROAD — Sen. Elizabeth Warren is hitting the trail during Congress’ August recess. She's among the high-profile Democrats heading to GOP districts to headline rallies as part of the “Won’t Back Down Tour,” a project of the political action arm of the left-leaning grassroots advocacy group MoveOn, POLITICO’s Cassandra Dumay reports.
— Markey and McGovern meet Khalil again, this time, far from a prison by Matt Szafranski, Western Mass Politics & Insight: “Just over a month after a judge released him, Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil came to Capitol Hill to lobby on behalf of Palestinians. Of course, the context of Khalil’s visit was not just the war in Gaza he had opposed as a student. Donald Trump and cronies had imprisoned Khalil, a lawful permanent resident with US citizen family, for his activism at Columbia after the war broke out. Among those Khalil met were members of the 413’s delegation including Senator Ed Markey and 2nd Massachusetts District Rep James McGovern. Markey, McGovern and Boston Representative Ayanna Pressley had visited Khalil and Tufts student Ruymesa Ozturk at federal detention camps in Louisiana.”
FROM THE 413
— Amherst seeks residents for Black Reparations Committee via the Daily Hampshire Gazette: “With almost $600,000 in the town’s Reparations Stabilization Fund, town officials are preparing to name residents to the Amherst Black Reparations Committee that will guide how money is disbursed to confront harms caused by support in town for slavery and post-reconstruction discrimination. The seven-member committee has a mission to make recommendations to the Town Council on priority areas for spending from the fund, likely drawing from the contents of the African Heritage Reparation Assembly’s final report from 2023.”
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THE LOCAL ANGLE
— Methuen mayor calls for Market Basket to end ‘drama,’ reinstate Arthur T. by Molly Farrar, Boston.com: “The mayor of Methuen is calling on the Market Basket board to bring back Artie T., the popular CEO who was placed on paid leave amid alleged family drama. … Mayor D.J. Beauregard sent a letter to the board of Demoulas Super Markets, or Market Basket, Thursday calling on the leaders to end the ‘drama’ and ‘the corporate chess.’ Methuen has two Market Basket stores, he notes.”
— Bourne Bridge replacement money raised as a concern at community forum in Sandwich by Rachael Devaney, Cape Cod Times: “Anxiety and fear about plans for the completion of the Cape Cod bridges replacement project seemed to suck the air out of the Middle-High School auditorium Monday during the second quarterly community forum held by the state Department of Transportation. … As currently planned in the $4 billion project, the single Sagamore Bridge will be replaced first by two bridges, one for northbound traffic and one for southbound. Likewise, the single Bourne Bridge is to be replaced with two bridges. But questions about funding for the Bourne Bridge and continued concern about 13 homes and three commercial properties in Bourne that will be taken by the state for the new Sagamore Bridge dominated discussions at the forum.”
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD BE READING
— Fire departments across Massachusetts fail to meet staffing standards, union survey shows by Patrick Madden, WBUR: “Nearly all Massachusetts fire departments fail to meet national standards for staffing fire trucks, based on a survey of local unions launched after the deadly Fall River fire. Firefighters across the state say they’re worried they don’t have enough people to handle the next big fire.”
— WBZ offers buyouts to photographers, engineers, as longtime reporter Beth Germano announces retirement by Nick Stoico, The Boston Globe: “WBZ-TV has offered buyouts to several of its photographers and engineers, their union confirmed Thursday, a day after Dr. Mallika Marshall, an Emmy-winning health reporter at the station, announced she’d been laid off. Beth Germano, another longtime reporter at WBZ, said Thursday she will retire next month after almost 30 years at the Boston news station. Fletcher Fischer, business manager and financial secretary for IBEW Local 1228, said the news station is offering buyouts to six photographers and three people in the engineering department. The union currently represents 36 workers at WBZ, which is owned by CBS, he said.”
HEARD ‘ROUND THE BUBBLAH
TRANSITIONS — Juliette Chandler is now deputy comms director for Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi’s (D-Ill.) Senate campaign. She was digital director and press secretary for Rep. Lori Trahan.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY — to state Rep. Hannah Kane, the Boston Globe’s Sean Cotter and Milton Valencia, former World Bank president Robert Zoellick, Amanda McGowan, Andrew Feldman, Alan Chartock and David Marx.
HAPPY BIRTHWEEKEND — to NAIOP CEO Tamara Small and Hadley Holmes, who celebrate Saturday; and to Sunday birthday-ers Mike Cusher, Linda Feldmann, Anna Fletcher and Miles Ketchum
Want to make an impact? POLITICO Massachusetts has a variety of solutions available for partners looking to reach and activate the most influential people in the Bay State. Have a petition you want signed? A cause you’re promoting? Seeking to increase brand awareness among this key audience? Share your message with our influential readers to foster engagement and drive action. Contact Jesse Shapiro to find out how: jshapiro@politico.com.
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