Note to Massachusetts Democrats who laugh at Donald Trump’s general election chances: Remember Scott Brown.

Six years ago we scoffed as the self-styled everyman from Wrentham drove his pickup truck into the history books, snatching Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat out of Martha Coakley’s ?outstretched hands.

If we do not take Donald Trump seriously, history could repeat itself.

On Tuesday, with Scott Brown’s help, Trump handily bested his establishment foes, earning the votes of nearly half of the Republican and unenrolled voters who pulled a Republican ballot in the Massachusetts presidential primary.

With victories in 10 of the first 15 contests under his belt, Trump is on his way to capturing the Republican nomination. No Republican presidential candidate has carried Massachusetts since Ronald Reagan.

Trump is no Reagan, but he’s no Mitt Romney or John McCain, either. Those two never stood a chance here as standard bearers of a conservative movement that doesn’t play well in the socially moderate, pro-labor, non-evangelical Northeast.

Trump has eschewed some of the conservative orthodoxy that voters here reject. His squishy position on gay marriage, defense of Planned Parenthood and past support for Democratic politicians could make him more palatable to Massachusetts voters than previous Republican candidates.

The commonwealth is also full of angry white folks longing for an erstwhile and largely fictional era before President Obama, immigrants and the PC police ruined everything. You know, Trump voters.

Trump’s appeal to a portion of the electorate that is already energized and ready to strike a blow against the status quo has allowed him to roll through primary season without any semblance of a ground game. He ?doesn’t need a ground game to turn out his people. They’re ready.

The coalition of voters Massachusetts Democrats need to turn out in statewide elections, however, will not turn out on their own. Getting Democratic voters to the polls takes organization — and building a grass-roots army of door-knockers takes time.

By the time Dems started taking Scott Brown seriously, he was already surfing the wave of voter discontent that would eventually take him all the way to Washington.

Donald Trump’s appeal to an animated slice of the Massachusetts electorate is real and those who dismiss his chances of putting the ?Bay State in play do so at their peril.

Kevin Franck is a former spokesman for the Massachusetts Democratic Party and a contributor to Boston Herald Radio.