How A Massachusetts Republican Became One Of America’s Most Popular Politicians Filed under Pollapalooza

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2018 seems like a bad time to be a Republican just about anywhere. So you would think it would be even worse to be a Republican in deep-blue Massachusetts, where Hillary Clinton won by 27 percentage points in 2016.

But the state’s GOP governor, Charlie Baker, is doing just fine, thank you. Actually, way better that fine: Baker, who is running for re-election in November, may be the most popular statewide elected official in the U.S. Of either party.

A MassINC poll released late last week for Boston’s WBUR radio station found that 66 percent of Massachusetts registered voters have a favorable view of Baker while 14 percent have an unfavorable view. That +52 net favorability rating is, of course, much better than President Trump’s in Massachusetts (-39). But it’s also ahead of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (+17), and she is not only a Democrat but also considered a leading figure in the party and a possible 2020 presidential contender.

We don’t have recent favorability ratings for all governors and U.S. senators. But recent Morning Consult reports detailing the approval ratings of every governor and every senator in their states found Baker at the top of both groups: 69 percent of registered voters in the Bay State said they approved of his performance (16 percent said they disapproved). Coming in second was Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont with a 68 percent approval rating (26 percent disapproval). (Baker ranks No. 1 in net approval, too.)

In these partisan times, Baker’s popularity might seem a bit out of place. So what’s going on?

Baker is a moderate, or perhaps even a liberal, Republican — The Massachusetts governor announced publicly that he would not vote for Trump (or Clinton) in 2016. He opposed efforts by Trump and congressional Republicans to repeal Obamacare and Trump’s ban on people from certain countries, many of which are majority-Muslim, from traveling to the U.S. In the wake of the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida, he has spoken in favor of more gun control measures. He supports abortion rights.

At the same time, Baker does not go out of his way to bash Trump, the way, say, his fellow Republican governor John Kasich of Ohio has. Baker’s approach to Trump may be why Republicans in his state are largely still on his side — 72 percent of registered Republicans in the MassINC poll said they had a favorable view of him. (Massachusetts Republicans, voters and elected officials, also tend to be more liberal than Republicans in other states, so they may be pragmatic enough to embrace a governor who is so broadly popular.)

Massachusetts has a history of GOP governors — The state that launched the political careers of major Democratic figures such as Michael Dukakis, John F. Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Warren has had only one Democratic governor (Deval Patrick) since 1991. Mitt Romney was the governor of Massachusetts before he became the GOP presidential nominee in 2012, leading in a centrist style that resulted in his signing the Massachusetts health care law on which Obamacare was modeled.

Governors can escape partisan gravity — Increasingly, blue states elect Democrats to the Senate, red states elect GOP senators, and whenever senators don’t vote the way their state leans in presidential years, they get in deep electoral trouble. Those elections have become nationalized.

State politics don’t seem to have those same dynamics. Four of the six most-popular governors according to the Morning Consult data (Maryland’s Larry Hogan, Vermont’s Phil Scott, Nevada’s Brian Sandoval and Baker) are Republicans in blue states. John Bel Edwards, the Democratic governor of deeply conservative Louisiana, is also very popular, with an approval rating of 56 percent and a disapproval rating of 27 percent. Two of the least-popular governors are Connecticut Democrat Dan Malloy and Oklahoma Republican Mary Fallin, who in theory should be in step with their states’ political bents.

We also saw this in the 2016 elections — many states voted one way for president and the other for governor:

Gubernatorial and presidential results diverged in many states in 2016 View more! Source: Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

Governors seem to be able to create brands separate from their parties (Edwards touts his support for abortion limits, for example). And they’re held accountable for local concerns — ideology aside (the economy in Connecticut is struggling).

Baker seems likely to cruise to victory in November. We’ll have to wait and see if his popularity eventually leads to a challenge to either Warren or the other Massachusetts senator, Democrat Ed Markey. Baker’s moderate record in Massachusetts may preclude him from being a future GOP presidential nominee, but Romney figured it out (sort of). And Baker may be a better politician than Romney, who didn’t run for a second gubernatorial term and may have lost if he had.

Other Polling Nuggets

Trump’s approval rating

Trump’s job approval rating is 40.2 percent; his disapproval rating is 53.6 percent. Last week, his approval rating was 40.6 percent, compared with a disapproval rating of 53.4 percent.

The generic ballot

The Democrats hold a 46.4 percent to 39.7 percent advantage on the generic congressional ballot this week. Last week, Democrats were up 47.3 percent to 41.1 percent.