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Charles Duane Baker IV (born November 13, 1956) is an American businessman and politician serving as the 72nd governor of Massachusetts since January 8, 2015. A Republican, he was a cabinet official under two governors of Massachusetts and served ten years as chief executive officer (CEO) of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
Baker grew up in Needham, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard University in 1979, and later obtained an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. In 1991, he became Massachusetts Undersecretary of Health and Human Services under Governor Bill Weld. In 1992, he was appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services of Massachusetts. He later served as Secretary of Administration and Finance under Weld and his successor, Paul Cellucci.
After working in government for eight years, Baker left to become CEO of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates and later Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, a non-profit health benefits company. During this time he served three years as a selectman of Swampscott and considered a run for Massachusetts Governor in 2006. He stepped down in July 2009 to run for Governor of Massachusetts on a platform of fiscal conservatism and cultural liberalism. He was unopposed in the Republican primary but lost in the 2010 general election to the Democratic incumbent, Deval Patrick.
Running for the office again, on November 4, 2014, he won the general election against Democrat Martha Coakley by a narrow margin. In 2018, Baker was re-elected handily over Democratic challenger Jay Gonzalez with 67% of the vote, the largest vote share in a Massachusetts gubernatorial election since 1994.[2] As of September 30, 2019, Baker had a job approval rating of 73%, and Baker enjoyed the highest approval rating of any governor in the United States for the eleventh quarter in a row.[3][4][5][6]
Early life and career
Baker was born on November 13, 1956, in Elmira, New York. Of English ancestry, his family has been in what is now the northeastern United States since the Colonial era.[7] He is the fourth generation in the family to bear the forename Charles.[8][9]
His great-grandfather Charles D. Baker (1846–1934) was an assistant United States attorney in New York, who served several years in the New York State Assembly.[10] His grandfather, Charles D. Baker Jr. (c. 1890–1971), was a prominent politician in Newburyport, Massachusetts.[11][12]
His father, Charles Duane Baker (born 1928), a Harvard graduate, was a buyer for the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, meanwhile his mother, Alice Elizabeth "Betty" (née Ghormley), remained at home.[8][13][14]
Baker grew up with two younger brothers, Jonathan and Alex, in Needham, Massachusetts, before moving to Rockport. He grew up playing football, hockey, and baseball; he has described his childhood as "pretty all-American."[8]
Baker's father was a conservative Republican, his mother a liberal Democrat, and the family was often drawn into political arguments at the dinner table.[8] His father became vice president of Harbridge House, a Boston management consulting firm, in 1965.
In 1969, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where the elder Baker was named deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the Nixon Administration, the following year becoming the department's assistant secretary for policy and international affairs, and in both capacities serving under former Massachusetts Governor John Volpe.[8][13] His father also served as undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Reagan Administration under former Massachusetts Congresswoman Margaret Heckler.[15]
The family returned to Needham in 1971, where Baker attended Needham High School.[13][16] He served on the student council, played basketball, and joined DeMolay International, a youth fraternity organization. In a Bay State Conference championship basketball game, a ball he inbounded with two seconds left on the clock, was tipped away by a player from Dedham High School, causing Needham to lose by a single point.[17][18]
Baker attended Harvard College and graduated in 1979 with a BA in English. He later stated that he went to Harvard "because of the brand," and wrote, "With a few exceptions ... those four years are ones I would rather forget."[8][16] While at Harvard, Baker played on the JV basketball team, utilizing his 6-foot 6-inch stature. He then attended Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where he received an MBA in management. After graduating, Baker served as corporate communications director for the Massachusetts High Technology Council.[19]
State government career
In the late 1980s, Baker was hired as codirector of the newly founded Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based libertarian think tank. Lovett C. "Pete" Peters, the institute's founder, later recommended him to Bill Weld, the incoming Republican Governor of Massachusetts.[16] Weld took office in January 1991 and hired him as Undersecretary of Health and Human Services.
In cutting back state programs and social services, Baker caused controversy from early on. However, some government officials called him an "innovator" and "one of the big stars among the secretariats and the agencies."[19] Baker was promoted to Secretary of Health and Human Services in November 1992,[19] and was later made Secretary of Administration and Finance, a position he continued to hold after Weld resigned in 1997 and Paul Cellucci took over as acting governor. In mid-1998, Cellucci offered him the lieutenant governor spot on the ticket, but Baker declined.[16]
As Secretary of Administration and Finance, Baker was a main architect of the Big Dig financing plan. In 1997 the federal government was planning to cut funding for the Big Dig by $300 million per year.[20] The state set up a trust and sold Grant Anticipation Notes (GANs) to investors. The notes were secured by promising future federal highway funds. As federal highway dollars are awarded to Massachusetts, the money is used to pay off the GANs.[20][21]
According to a 2007 blue-ribbon panel, the cost overruns of the Big Dig, combined with Baker's plan for financing them, ultimately left the state transportation system underfunded by $1 billion a year.[20] Baker defended his plan as responsible, effective, and based on previous government officials' good-faith assurances that the Big Dig would be built on time and on budget.[20] However, as he was developing the plan, Baker had also had to take into account that Governor Cellucci was dead-set against any new taxes or fees.[20] Former State Transportation Secretary James J. Kerasiotes, the public face of the Big Dig, praised Baker's work on the financing and said, "We were caught in a confluence of events," adding that "Charlie had a job to do, and he did his job and he did it well."[20]
Health industry career
In September 1998, Baker left state government and became CEO of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, a New England–based physicians' group.[16] In May 1999, he was named president and CEO of Harvard Vanguard's parent company, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, a non-profit health benefits organization.[22] The company had lost $58 million in 1998,[23] and it was predicted to lose over $90 million in 1999.[24] Baker responded by cutting the workforce by 90 people, increasing premiums, establishing new contracts with Massachusetts physicians, reassessing the company's financial structure, and outsourcing its information technology.[22][25] During his tenure as CEO, the company had 24 profitable quarters in a row and earned recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance as its choice for America's Best Health Plan for five consecutive years.[16]
In mid-2007, Baker was invited to join the board of trustees of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Because of Baker's role in the insurance business, the appointment caused controversy, but he and the hospital's CEO, Paul F. Levy, denied any conflict of interest.[26] Baker also serves on the board of directors of the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center,[27] which, according to its website, is a "national nonprofit leading the movement to bring compassion to every patient-caregiver interaction."[28]
Return to politics
Baker ran for the board of selectmen of Swampscott, Massachusetts, in 2004, and won by a "landslide."[16] While on the board, he was noted for a businessman-like approach to local issues; his fellow selectmen described him as "low key" and budget-oriented.[29] After serving three years, he chose not to run for re-election in 2007.[30]
In mid-2005, there were indications that Governor Mitt Romney would not seek re-election in the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial election. Baker was widely considered a top contender to take Romney's place as the Republican candidate.[31] Analysts wrote that Baker was unlikely to defeat Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, who had already announced her candidacy. Healey was the 2–1 favorite among Republican voters in a Boston Globe poll and had much stronger financial backing. Furthermore, ethics guidelines at Harvard Pilgrim prevented Baker from carrying out any political fundraising while he held an executive position.[31] After "giving serious consideration" to the idea, he announced in August 2005 that he would not run, citing the burden it would be on his family and the difficulty of campaigning against Healey.[31]
In late 2006, Baker was named to a Budget and Finance working group for incoming Governor Deval Patrick's transition committee.[32] In 2008, he joined the Public Advisory Board of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics (NHIOP) at Saint Anselm College.[33]
2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign
In 2009 Baker was again rumored to be a contender for the Massachusetts gubernatorial election. Former governor Weld strongly encouraged him to run, calling him "the heart and soul of the Weld–Cellucci administration."[34] On July 8, 2009, Baker announced his candidacy, and on July 17 he stepped down from his position at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.[35][36] His campaign formally began on January 30, 2010. His opponents were Democratic incumbent Deval Patrick, Green-Rainbow candidate Jill Stein, and an independent, state treasurer and Receiver General Tim Cahill.[37] For his running mate, Baker chose Senate minority leader Richard R. Tisei.[38] At the state Republican Convention on April 17, 2010, Baker beat former Independent candidate Christy Mihos for the Republican nomination, winning with 89% of the delegate vote, thus avoiding a primary fight with Mihos.[39]
Baker ran as a social liberal (in favor of gay marriage and abortion rights) but a fiscal conservative, stressing job creation as his primary focus.[35][36] Baker reinforced his social liberal positions with the selection of Richard Tisei, an openly gay Republican who had supported same-sex marriage legalization efforts in Massachusetts, as his running mate.[40] The campaign centered on "Baker's Dozen," a plan outlining 13 areas of state government reform. Baker's campaign said that his plan, which included consolidation of government, welfare reform, and restructuring of public employee pension and retirement benefits, would lower state expenditures by over $1 billion.[41] Baker, a former member of the Massachusetts Board of Education, advocated increasing the number of charter, magnet, and alternative schools. Believing that education is a "civil right," he also aimed to close the educational achievement gap among underprivileged and minority students.[42] At a town hall meeting in Chilmark, Massachusetts, on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Baker voiced his opposition to the proposed Cape Wind project supported by Governor Deval Patrick.[43]
Baker ran against Patrick in an atmosphere of voter discontent, with a slow economy and high unemployment, which he used to his advantage during the campaign. Patrick, facing low approval ratings, criticized Baker for his role in the Big Dig financing plan, and for raising health premiums while head of Harvard Pilgrim.[44] Despite an anti-incumbent mood among voters, Baker was defeated in the November 2 general election with 42 percent of the vote. Patrick was re-elected with 48 percent of the vote.[45] "We fought the good fight," said Baker in his concession speech. "We have no cause to hang our heads and will be stronger for having fought this one."[44]
After the 2010 election, Baker was named an executive in residence at General Catalyst Partners and a member of the board of directors at the Tremont Credit Union.[46]
2014 Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign
On September 4, 2013, Baker announced that he would run again for Governor of Massachusetts in 2014 when incumbent governor Deval Patrick, to whom he lost in 2010, retired. On November 25, 2013, Mark Fisher, a businessman and Tea Party member announced that he would run against Baker in the Republican primary.[47] In December 2013, Baker endorsed Karyn Polito as his running mate, a former opponent of same-sex marriage who had come to support marriage equality.[48][49]
At the Republican State Convention on March 22, 2014, Baker received 2,095 votes (82.708%), Fisher received 374 votes (14.765%) and there were 64 blank votes (2.527%). The threshold for making the ballot is 15% and the party announced that Baker had thus received the nomination without the need for a primary election.[50] However, Fisher argued that according to the Convention Rules, blank votes are not counted for the purposes of determining the winner and that he thus received 15.148%, enough to make the ballot. He sued the Massachusetts Republican State Committee and was certified for the primary ballot after a lengthy battle.[51][52][53][54] In the primary election held on September 9, Baker defeated Fisher with 74% of the vote.
In July 2014, Baker was criticized by Democrats for refusing to say whether he supported a provision in the new gun control law that gave police chiefs discretion to deny firearms identification cards, which are required to purchase shotguns and rifles.[55] He later stated in a debate that he would have signed the gun control bill as it was signed by Governor Patrick.[56]
On October 27, 2014, The Boston Globe announced that it was endorsing Baker marking the first time in twenty years that newspaper has supported a Republican candidate for governor. "One needn't agree with every last one of Baker's views to conclude that, at this time, the Republican nominee would provide the best counterpoint to the instincts of an overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature," the endorsement reads. The newspaper also supported Baker because it claimed Baker would be the better candidate to "consolidate" outgoing Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick's legacy on reforms tied to education, health care and public transportation.[57]
On October 29, 2014, controversy arose over a story that Baker told the previous night about a fisherman and his two sons in New Bedford. In the following days, The Boston Globe and The Standard-Times were unable to find the fisherman. This story, which Baker claims to have occurred in 2009, has been attributed by a professor from Northeastern University as a potential false memory. Coakley seized on this moment to launch an attack on Baker, and visited New Bedford to meet with fishing industry leaders.[58]
In the early morning of November 5, 2014, preliminary results showed that Baker won the gubernatorial election.[59] Later in the morning of November 5, Democratic opponent Martha Coakley conceded the race to Baker.[60] The final election tally showed Baker with 48.5% of the vote against Coakley's 46.6%.[61]
2018 Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign
Main article: 2018 Massachusetts gubernatorial election
Heading into the 2018 election, Baker had been consistently rated as one of the most popular governors in the country.[62]
He was challenged in the Republican primary by Scott Lively, an evangelical pastor, who received enough votes at the state convention to qualify for ballot access. However, Baker easily fended off this challenge, receiving nearly 70% of the vote in the Republican primary on September 4, 2018. Lively filed a lawsuit against Baker and the state Republican Party alleging they violated neutrality rules during the campaign. Superior Court Judge Susan Sullivan dismissed all claims brought by Lively on June 25, 2019.[63]
In the general election, Baker faced off against Jay Gonzalez, a private health insurance executive who also served under Governor Deval Patrick as Secretary of Administration and Finance of Massachusetts.[64] Gonzalez suffered from low name recognition throughout the campaign and polls indicated that Baker would receive a majority of the vote from registered Democrats in the state.[65] On election night, Baker was re-elected in a landslide with 67% of the vote and the highest vote total in the history of Massachusetts' gubernatorial elections. This was also the best performance by a Massachusetts Republican governor since Bill Weld's reelection in 1994.
Governor of Massachusetts
Baker's first gubernatorial portrait
Baker was inaugurated on January 8, 2015, as the 72nd governor of Massachusetts at the Massachusetts State House in Boston.[66] Politically, Governor Baker is considered to be a liberal or moderate Republican.[67] Baker was inaugurated for his second term on January 3, 2019.[68] Baker supports the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump that began in September 2019.[69]
Baker grew up in Needham, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard University in 1979, and later obtained an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. In 1991, he became Massachusetts Undersecretary of Health and Human Services under Governor Bill Weld. In 1992, he was appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services of Massachusetts. He later served as Secretary of Administration and Finance under Weld and his successor, Paul Cellucci.
After working in government for eight years, Baker left to become CEO of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates and later Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, a non-profit health benefits company. During this time he served three years as a selectman of Swampscott and considered a run for Massachusetts Governor in 2006. He stepped down in July 2009 to run for Governor of Massachusetts on a platform of fiscal conservatism and cultural liberalism. He was unopposed in the Republican primary but lost in the 2010 general election to the Democratic incumbent, Deval Patrick.
Running for the office again, on November 4, 2014, he won the general election against Democrat Martha Coakley by a narrow margin. In 2018, Baker was re-elected handily over Democratic challenger Jay Gonzalez with 67% of the vote, the largest vote share in a Massachusetts gubernatorial election since 1994.[2] As of September 30, 2019, Baker had a job approval rating of 73%, and Baker enjoyed the highest approval rating of any governor in the United States for the eleventh quarter in a row.[3][4][5][6]
Early life and career
Baker was born on November 13, 1956, in Elmira, New York. Of English ancestry, his family has been in what is now the northeastern United States since the Colonial era.[7] He is the fourth generation in the family to bear the forename Charles.[8][9]
His great-grandfather Charles D. Baker (1846–1934) was an assistant United States attorney in New York, who served several years in the New York State Assembly.[10] His grandfather, Charles D. Baker Jr. (c. 1890–1971), was a prominent politician in Newburyport, Massachusetts.[11][12]
His father, Charles Duane Baker (born 1928), a Harvard graduate, was a buyer for the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, meanwhile his mother, Alice Elizabeth "Betty" (née Ghormley), remained at home.[8][13][14]
Baker grew up with two younger brothers, Jonathan and Alex, in Needham, Massachusetts, before moving to Rockport. He grew up playing football, hockey, and baseball; he has described his childhood as "pretty all-American."[8]
Baker's father was a conservative Republican, his mother a liberal Democrat, and the family was often drawn into political arguments at the dinner table.[8] His father became vice president of Harbridge House, a Boston management consulting firm, in 1965.
In 1969, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where the elder Baker was named deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the Nixon Administration, the following year becoming the department's assistant secretary for policy and international affairs, and in both capacities serving under former Massachusetts Governor John Volpe.[8][13] His father also served as undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Reagan Administration under former Massachusetts Congresswoman Margaret Heckler.[15]
The family returned to Needham in 1971, where Baker attended Needham High School.[13][16] He served on the student council, played basketball, and joined DeMolay International, a youth fraternity organization. In a Bay State Conference championship basketball game, a ball he inbounded with two seconds left on the clock, was tipped away by a player from Dedham High School, causing Needham to lose by a single point.[17][18]
Baker attended Harvard College and graduated in 1979 with a BA in English. He later stated that he went to Harvard "because of the brand," and wrote, "With a few exceptions ... those four years are ones I would rather forget."[8][16] While at Harvard, Baker played on the JV basketball team, utilizing his 6-foot 6-inch stature. He then attended Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where he received an MBA in management. After graduating, Baker served as corporate communications director for the Massachusetts High Technology Council.[19]
State government career
In the late 1980s, Baker was hired as codirector of the newly founded Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based libertarian think tank. Lovett C. "Pete" Peters, the institute's founder, later recommended him to Bill Weld, the incoming Republican Governor of Massachusetts.[16] Weld took office in January 1991 and hired him as Undersecretary of Health and Human Services.
In cutting back state programs and social services, Baker caused controversy from early on. However, some government officials called him an "innovator" and "one of the big stars among the secretariats and the agencies."[19] Baker was promoted to Secretary of Health and Human Services in November 1992,[19] and was later made Secretary of Administration and Finance, a position he continued to hold after Weld resigned in 1997 and Paul Cellucci took over as acting governor. In mid-1998, Cellucci offered him the lieutenant governor spot on the ticket, but Baker declined.[16]
As Secretary of Administration and Finance, Baker was a main architect of the Big Dig financing plan. In 1997 the federal government was planning to cut funding for the Big Dig by $300 million per year.[20] The state set up a trust and sold Grant Anticipation Notes (GANs) to investors. The notes were secured by promising future federal highway funds. As federal highway dollars are awarded to Massachusetts, the money is used to pay off the GANs.[20][21]
According to a 2007 blue-ribbon panel, the cost overruns of the Big Dig, combined with Baker's plan for financing them, ultimately left the state transportation system underfunded by $1 billion a year.[20] Baker defended his plan as responsible, effective, and based on previous government officials' good-faith assurances that the Big Dig would be built on time and on budget.[20] However, as he was developing the plan, Baker had also had to take into account that Governor Cellucci was dead-set against any new taxes or fees.[20] Former State Transportation Secretary James J. Kerasiotes, the public face of the Big Dig, praised Baker's work on the financing and said, "We were caught in a confluence of events," adding that "Charlie had a job to do, and he did his job and he did it well."[20]
Health industry career
In September 1998, Baker left state government and became CEO of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, a New England–based physicians' group.[16] In May 1999, he was named president and CEO of Harvard Vanguard's parent company, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, a non-profit health benefits organization.[22] The company had lost $58 million in 1998,[23] and it was predicted to lose over $90 million in 1999.[24] Baker responded by cutting the workforce by 90 people, increasing premiums, establishing new contracts with Massachusetts physicians, reassessing the company's financial structure, and outsourcing its information technology.[22][25] During his tenure as CEO, the company had 24 profitable quarters in a row and earned recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance as its choice for America's Best Health Plan for five consecutive years.[16]
In mid-2007, Baker was invited to join the board of trustees of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Because of Baker's role in the insurance business, the appointment caused controversy, but he and the hospital's CEO, Paul F. Levy, denied any conflict of interest.[26] Baker also serves on the board of directors of the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center,[27] which, according to its website, is a "national nonprofit leading the movement to bring compassion to every patient-caregiver interaction."[28]
Return to politics
Baker ran for the board of selectmen of Swampscott, Massachusetts, in 2004, and won by a "landslide."[16] While on the board, he was noted for a businessman-like approach to local issues; his fellow selectmen described him as "low key" and budget-oriented.[29] After serving three years, he chose not to run for re-election in 2007.[30]
In mid-2005, there were indications that Governor Mitt Romney would not seek re-election in the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial election. Baker was widely considered a top contender to take Romney's place as the Republican candidate.[31] Analysts wrote that Baker was unlikely to defeat Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, who had already announced her candidacy. Healey was the 2–1 favorite among Republican voters in a Boston Globe poll and had much stronger financial backing. Furthermore, ethics guidelines at Harvard Pilgrim prevented Baker from carrying out any political fundraising while he held an executive position.[31] After "giving serious consideration" to the idea, he announced in August 2005 that he would not run, citing the burden it would be on his family and the difficulty of campaigning against Healey.[31]
In late 2006, Baker was named to a Budget and Finance working group for incoming Governor Deval Patrick's transition committee.[32] In 2008, he joined the Public Advisory Board of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics (NHIOP) at Saint Anselm College.[33]
2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign
In 2009 Baker was again rumored to be a contender for the Massachusetts gubernatorial election. Former governor Weld strongly encouraged him to run, calling him "the heart and soul of the Weld–Cellucci administration."[34] On July 8, 2009, Baker announced his candidacy, and on July 17 he stepped down from his position at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.[35][36] His campaign formally began on January 30, 2010. His opponents were Democratic incumbent Deval Patrick, Green-Rainbow candidate Jill Stein, and an independent, state treasurer and Receiver General Tim Cahill.[37] For his running mate, Baker chose Senate minority leader Richard R. Tisei.[38] At the state Republican Convention on April 17, 2010, Baker beat former Independent candidate Christy Mihos for the Republican nomination, winning with 89% of the delegate vote, thus avoiding a primary fight with Mihos.[39]
Baker ran as a social liberal (in favor of gay marriage and abortion rights) but a fiscal conservative, stressing job creation as his primary focus.[35][36] Baker reinforced his social liberal positions with the selection of Richard Tisei, an openly gay Republican who had supported same-sex marriage legalization efforts in Massachusetts, as his running mate.[40] The campaign centered on "Baker's Dozen," a plan outlining 13 areas of state government reform. Baker's campaign said that his plan, which included consolidation of government, welfare reform, and restructuring of public employee pension and retirement benefits, would lower state expenditures by over $1 billion.[41] Baker, a former member of the Massachusetts Board of Education, advocated increasing the number of charter, magnet, and alternative schools. Believing that education is a "civil right," he also aimed to close the educational achievement gap among underprivileged and minority students.[42] At a town hall meeting in Chilmark, Massachusetts, on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Baker voiced his opposition to the proposed Cape Wind project supported by Governor Deval Patrick.[43]
Baker ran against Patrick in an atmosphere of voter discontent, with a slow economy and high unemployment, which he used to his advantage during the campaign. Patrick, facing low approval ratings, criticized Baker for his role in the Big Dig financing plan, and for raising health premiums while head of Harvard Pilgrim.[44] Despite an anti-incumbent mood among voters, Baker was defeated in the November 2 general election with 42 percent of the vote. Patrick was re-elected with 48 percent of the vote.[45] "We fought the good fight," said Baker in his concession speech. "We have no cause to hang our heads and will be stronger for having fought this one."[44]
After the 2010 election, Baker was named an executive in residence at General Catalyst Partners and a member of the board of directors at the Tremont Credit Union.[46]
2014 Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign
On September 4, 2013, Baker announced that he would run again for Governor of Massachusetts in 2014 when incumbent governor Deval Patrick, to whom he lost in 2010, retired. On November 25, 2013, Mark Fisher, a businessman and Tea Party member announced that he would run against Baker in the Republican primary.[47] In December 2013, Baker endorsed Karyn Polito as his running mate, a former opponent of same-sex marriage who had come to support marriage equality.[48][49]
At the Republican State Convention on March 22, 2014, Baker received 2,095 votes (82.708%), Fisher received 374 votes (14.765%) and there were 64 blank votes (2.527%). The threshold for making the ballot is 15% and the party announced that Baker had thus received the nomination without the need for a primary election.[50] However, Fisher argued that according to the Convention Rules, blank votes are not counted for the purposes of determining the winner and that he thus received 15.148%, enough to make the ballot. He sued the Massachusetts Republican State Committee and was certified for the primary ballot after a lengthy battle.[51][52][53][54] In the primary election held on September 9, Baker defeated Fisher with 74% of the vote.
In July 2014, Baker was criticized by Democrats for refusing to say whether he supported a provision in the new gun control law that gave police chiefs discretion to deny firearms identification cards, which are required to purchase shotguns and rifles.[55] He later stated in a debate that he would have signed the gun control bill as it was signed by Governor Patrick.[56]
On October 27, 2014, The Boston Globe announced that it was endorsing Baker marking the first time in twenty years that newspaper has supported a Republican candidate for governor. "One needn't agree with every last one of Baker's views to conclude that, at this time, the Republican nominee would provide the best counterpoint to the instincts of an overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature," the endorsement reads. The newspaper also supported Baker because it claimed Baker would be the better candidate to "consolidate" outgoing Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick's legacy on reforms tied to education, health care and public transportation.[57]
On October 29, 2014, controversy arose over a story that Baker told the previous night about a fisherman and his two sons in New Bedford. In the following days, The Boston Globe and The Standard-Times were unable to find the fisherman. This story, which Baker claims to have occurred in 2009, has been attributed by a professor from Northeastern University as a potential false memory. Coakley seized on this moment to launch an attack on Baker, and visited New Bedford to meet with fishing industry leaders.[58]
In the early morning of November 5, 2014, preliminary results showed that Baker won the gubernatorial election.[59] Later in the morning of November 5, Democratic opponent Martha Coakley conceded the race to Baker.[60] The final election tally showed Baker with 48.5% of the vote against Coakley's 46.6%.[61]
2018 Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign
Main article: 2018 Massachusetts gubernatorial election
Heading into the 2018 election, Baker had been consistently rated as one of the most popular governors in the country.[62]
He was challenged in the Republican primary by Scott Lively, an evangelical pastor, who received enough votes at the state convention to qualify for ballot access. However, Baker easily fended off this challenge, receiving nearly 70% of the vote in the Republican primary on September 4, 2018. Lively filed a lawsuit against Baker and the state Republican Party alleging they violated neutrality rules during the campaign. Superior Court Judge Susan Sullivan dismissed all claims brought by Lively on June 25, 2019.[63]
In the general election, Baker faced off against Jay Gonzalez, a private health insurance executive who also served under Governor Deval Patrick as Secretary of Administration and Finance of Massachusetts.[64] Gonzalez suffered from low name recognition throughout the campaign and polls indicated that Baker would receive a majority of the vote from registered Democrats in the state.[65] On election night, Baker was re-elected in a landslide with 67% of the vote and the highest vote total in the history of Massachusetts' gubernatorial elections. This was also the best performance by a Massachusetts Republican governor since Bill Weld's reelection in 1994.
Governor of Massachusetts
Baker's first gubernatorial portrait
Baker was inaugurated on January 8, 2015, as the 72nd governor of Massachusetts at the Massachusetts State House in Boston.[66] Politically, Governor Baker is considered to be a liberal or moderate Republican.[67] Baker was inaugurated for his second term on January 3, 2019.[68] Baker supports the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump that began in September 2019.[69]
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