Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a moderate Republican who defied former President Donald J. Trump during his two terms, announced on Wednesday that he would not seek re-election next year.
“After several months of discussion with our families, we have decided not to seek re-election in 2022,” Mr. Baker and his lieutenant governor, Karyn Polito, wrote in a letter to supporters.
Mr. Baker, 65, who is more popular in polling among Democrats and independent voters than he is among fellow Republicans, confronted a Trump-backed primary challenge and a general election in which he could have faced the state’s popular attorney general, Maura Healey, a Democrat.
A former health care executive, Mr. Baker is a popular, even-keeled, nonideological New England Republican who has been a proponent of abortion rights, same-sex marriage and some gun control measures. He would have been the favorite had he decided to run. But he was also a relic of the pre-Trump Republican Party that now exists mostly in television green rooms and Washington think tanks.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/politics/charlie-baker-massachusetts-governor.html
Comments