Three of the nation’s most popular governors are Republicans who didn’t vote for Donald Trump. They run blue states that Hillary Clinton won in last year’s presidential race. And all three of them are in a strong position to be re-elected in 2018.



It’s a reality that defies the anger of the moment.

Trump has thrived, especially with the GOP base, by turning politics and governing into a never-ending brawl. Anger also is fueling the opposition to Trump, and Democrats are counting on it to be a key ingredient in next year’s midterms. But it’s not guaranteed to be part of the races in Massachusetts, Maryland, or Vermont.

Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan, and Phil Scott, the respective leaders of those states, were among the more than 30 governors here this week for the National Governors Association’s summer meeting. It was hard to miss Baker, who at 6-foot-6 towers over others, or Hogan, who rolled down hotel and convention center corridors like a bowling ball, followed by his small entourage.

Pragmatic governors hold a lot of power in a setting like the nonpartisan NGA: The White House sent Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price to lean on governors — especially Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval — opposed to a health care bill that has become an ongoing and deep challenge for Republicans in Washington. And with term-limits hanging over Sandoval and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, two leading GOP centrists, it soon could fall to Baker, Hogan, and Scott to represent a slice of pro-business, soft-touch Republicanism that Trumpism has endangered.

In state-by-state polling last spring, Morning Consult measured Baker’s approval rating among Massachusetts voters at 75%, making him the nation’s most popular governor.

“If you’re not sitting here you must be [looking at the polls and] thinking, ‘My god, he must be killing it,’” Scott Ferson, a Democratic consultant in Massachusetts, told BuzzFeed News in a telephone interview. “But I tend to read them a little differently. If you’re in Massachusetts, what’s not to like? The economy is booming … most people are very happy, and doing quite well.

“There’s no reason to be angry.”

Massachusetts is known for electing Republican governors as a check and balance on liberal state legislatures. To win statewide — like in Maryland or Vermont — a candidate needs crossover appeal; while Trump ran the table with Republican voters during the presidential primary last year in liberal Northeastern states like Massachusetts and New York, Clinton blew him out in them come November. Notably, though, Trump largely ran on positions less conservative than his peers, despite his anger and populism. The Republicans who actually get elected to statewide office in these places tend to be sunnier centrists. Democrats in Massachusetts were shut out of the governor's office completely during one 16-year stretch that began in 1991 with William Weld, who ran for vice president last year on the Libertarian ticket as part of a stop-Trump effort, and ended in 2007 with Mitt Romney, another centrist and vehement Trump opponent.

Baker has built useful working relationships with the Democratic speaker and the Democratic mayor of Boston, Ferson said. The governor also has emphasized his work to fight the opioid crisis, a policy issue that some Republicans have approached as a major health problem to be met with compassion. It’s also an area where Baker hasn’t had to keep his distance from Trump: The president appointed him to a federal commission to address the epidemic. This week at NGA, Baker emceed a panel discussion on opioids. He sat, coincidentally, to the left of two Democratic governors on stage, his tall frame folded into a red chair.

But Baker, who has been critical of the Republican proposals to overhaul Obamacare, also was notably absent from NGA proceedings Friday, when Pence flew in to make his health care pitch. A spokesman told BuzzFeed News that Baker had business to tend to next-door in Massachusetts. His team declined requests to interview the governor.

Democrats believe Baker has vulnerabilities, such as recent budget woes. But they have yet to recruit a top-flight challenger. Jay Gonzalez, who served in former Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration, and Setti Warren, the mayor of Newton, are among the early candidates. But big-name prospects such as Attorney General Maura Healey and Congressmen Joseph P. Kennedy III and Seth Moulton so far seem content to stay on the sidelines. Any of those three would be “instant rock stars” if they ran, said Ferson, who advises Moulton.

Some Democrats concede that somehow tying Baker to Trump is their only option.

“Generally speaking, the economy is in pretty good shape and looks good,” Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association and, according to the Morning Consult poll, one of the nation’s most unpopular governors, told reporters here Friday. “Certainly he will be a tough person to defeat. On the other hand, if you want to know the real reason he might go down? Donald J. Trump. So who’s to say what will happen in that election?”