Wolf plans listening tour to gauge gubernatorial run

Dan Wolf, former Democratic State Senator and current Cape Air CEO is actively considering a run for governor and will kick off a speaking tour across the state at a Cambridge Democratic City Committee meeting on Thursday, he confirmed to POLITICO Massachusetts.

“I’m curious, in the aftermath of the Trump election nationally, in the where we are in Massachusetts with the Democratic legislature and Republican governor, I’m really curious as to where people’s minds are and what they’re thinking about,” Wolf said.


Long considered a potential candidate, but largely silent since the November election, Wolf will speak on Thursday night alongside another potential candidate in Newton Mayor Setti Warren, as well as Cindi Roy Gonzalez, the wife of the Democratic field’s only declared candidate, Jay Gonzalez, according to an agenda of the Cambridge Democratic City Committee meeting.

Of the three potential Democratic challengers to Baker, Wolf called himself “probably the least likely to run. I feel very strongly that we need to be changing the focus and the conversation.”

Baker has not yet announced whether he will run for a second term but is widely assumed to be running, and he has been actively fundraising, including in Washington, D.C. on Friday during the National Governor's Association meeting. He currently has $4.7 million in his war chest.

Wolf, a wealthy businessman, has only $1,480 in his campaign account as of December 2016.

When Massachusetts Democrats huddled in Philadelphia for the national convention, Wolf’s name was bandied about as a potential gubernatorial candidate, though Setti Warren emerged as the most vocal of the group .

A state senator for six years, Wolf also ran for governor in 2014, but dropped out of the primary after a conflict of interest arose around his company, Cape Air, and a contract with Logan Airport. That issue has since been cleared by the State Ethics Commission, which approved a new regulation in 2014 that would allow circumstances for public employees to have financial interests in government contracts such as Wolf’s.

Since then, Wolf was one of the few elected Democrats supportive of Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primary. Wolf did not mention Sanders on Tuesday, but said he wants to continue conversations around income inequality and fair wages, as well as universal pre-K and environmental issues.

“My concern now is that everyone’s attention is focused on what’s happening in Washington and we cannot forget in Massachusetts it was a 61 percent Clinton victory," he said. "We can still be focused on the primary core economic issues from before the election, and that’s the conversation I want to have.”

Wolf also indicated he wants to have a conversation around the much-hailed deal that brought General Electric to Boston, known as Project Plum and hailed as a bipartisan success between Republican Gov. Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a Democrat.

“I find it troubling the Democratic Party is celebrating the corporate handout to GE to get them to come to the city of Boston,” Wolf said, adding that if the state wants to address wealth and income inequality with housing and transportation infrastructure issues, “none of that get addressed by bribing corporations to come to Massachusetts.”

Wolf said a decision on his candidacy is still a ways away, in part because he disagrees with the high cost of a lengthy campaign season, and also because he wants to travel around the state to listen to the concerns of potential voters.

“I have come to Cape Air full time” since leaving office, Wolf said, “and that really is my primary focus now and primary responsibility," he said. "But during the evening hours I’m going to have conversations at Democratic town committee meetings and other venues. With my experience running for governor and at the State House, I have perspective and I’d love to hear from others in the party.”