Sam Drysdale
State House News Service
Mike Minogue is "very confident" less than two weeks until Election Day, despite recent polling that puts him over 20 points behind Gov. Maura Healey.
"There's lies, damn lies, and polling," the Republican gubernatorial candidate said in a riff on the line popularized by Mark Twain: "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."
Two polls released this week showed the incumbent Democrat Healey with a significant lead as the race to be the executive of Massachusetts winds into its final weeks.
Of respondents to a UMass Amherst/WCVB poll released Monday, 56% said they would reelect Healey, while 31% supported the Republican challenger Minogue, 5% were backing independent candidate Andrea James, and 7% said they still don't know who they're planning to vote for. In a poll released the following day by The Boston Globe/Suffolk University, more than 58% of respondents said they'd favor reelecting Healey over Minogue, who earned 36% of respondents' backing.
But Minogue said Thursday that his campaign is conducting its own polling that shows different results.
"We feel very confident it's single digits," he said of the governor's race outside of Hamilton Town Hall on Thursday morning, after casting his own vote early.
He added, "Our polling data shows that it's very close, that 14% are still undecided."
He criticized other polls for being over reliant on Democratic voters in their samples.
"Our polling shows post debate — again, post debate — there was a real opportunity. We see it's single digits now, and we think it's just a matter of who comes out and votes," he said.
The Suffolk/Boston Globe poll surveyed voters Oct. 14 through Oct. 17, after Minogue and Healey's first debate. Their second debate was Oct. 15, during the polling period.
Minogue previously signaled that he believes he has strength among young, male voters, and he had a message Thursday to take advantage of early voting: "A lot of times we see, especially the young people, that they don't actually have time to vote. So don't wait 'til November 3rd. There can be long lines. There can be traffic. There can be problems at work. So go now."
The Republican gubernatorial candidate used the chilly Thursday morning to call on Healey to do more to lower residents' energy bills.
"It's getting cold right now, so we will see this year the most expensive heating bills in history starting in December," he said, then pivoted to efforts to save residents money at the gas pump. "She called for a gas tax [suspension] after I called for the 24-cent-a-gallon gas tax to be repealed. She got blown off. She's not pushing back on the Legislature because it was never real for her. It was just an election ploy."
Healey proposed a temporary, two-month suspension of the state's gas tax last month, after Minogue proposed a broader suspension whenever prices exceeded $4 per gallon with the intention of moving towards a repeal of the tax. However, the idea is effectively stalled after the House rejected the suspension Wednesday.
Asked Thursday what he would do differently than Healey to convince the Legislature to suspend or repeal the tax, Minogue said, "The first thing I would do, I would push back on them."
"I would demand that they go to special session. She didn't do that," he said.
Healey included the proposal in her closeout supplemental budget for fiscal year 2026, which the House took up Wednesday in a formal session about a month after the governor filed it.
"The second thing I would do is I would go right to the people and say to the Legislature, we need to lower this tax. I have a way to pay for it, and I would hold them accountable," he said.
The News Service asked Healey on Wednesday for a response to House leaders saying the gas tax suspension would not necessarily help residents at the pump, including a comment from House Speaker Ron Mariano who called the idea, "gimmicks and tricks to get some simple solutions to some complex problems."
Healey's spokesperson responded: "There is nothing gimmicky about a proposal to give gas tax relief to people. We worked hard to draft legislation that ensures drivers get the savings and that no transportation projects are impacted. We agree that we need Donald Trump to end this war, but in the meantime Governor Healey is going to do what’s in her power to lower gas prices for people, and that means continuing to push for this temporary gas tax relief for drivers."
Asked in Hamilton on Thursday about his opinion on the state of the Massachusetts GOP, Minogue did not directly respond to the question.
A few years ago, the state Republican Party faced major financial, legal and operational controversies under former chair Jim Lyons, and despite efforts under new leadership to rebuild, has faced fresh campaign scandals this election cycle.
In June, the State Ballot Law Commission disqualified top Republican candidates from the ballot after a forensic handwriting expert exposed hundreds of forged and duplicated nomination signatures. The MassGOP has maintained that the affected Republican candidates "did nothing wrong" and that a third-party signature gatherer committed the fraud.
More recently, Republican lieutenant governor nominee Shawn Oliver suspended his campaign following a New Bedford crash, in which he was allegedly driving drunk, struck five parked cars and flipped his SUV. He's facing charges of OUI and negligent operation of a motor vehicle. Minogue has said he's "come to an agreement" with Oliver that the lieutenant governor-elect will resign, if the pair win next month.
Asked for his opinion on the state of the MassGOP after issues this election cycle, including with Oliver, Minogue deflected to discussing issues within Healey's administration.
"Are you talking about the LaMar Cook scandal?" he said Thursday, referring to Healey's former aide who was arrested on charges involving alleged cocaine trafficking. "Are you talking about the Plazagate scandal, where we awarded $900 million more? Are you talking about the Springfield scandal where the person, Mr. Barros, took himself out of the running, but yet they still got a $2 billion courthouse. Are you talking about this scandal for the MBTA, where the general manager, Mr. Eng, pulled a woman's hair and taxpayers paid $500 million?"
On "Plazagate," Minogue was referencing the controversial awarding of a 35-year, $1.75 billion MassDOT highway rest stop contract to vendor Applegreen despite a rival bidder offering a bid reportedly $900 million lower, prompting a critical inspector general investigation into procurement flaws and the ultimate collapse of the deal. The Springfield courthouse controversy centers on the Healey administration's awarding of a 40-year, $2 billion lease contract to developer Liberty Junction — a group featuring politically connected insiders like John Barros and Conan Harris, husband of U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, which triggered lawsuits from losing bidders.
Healey has defended the Springfield courthouse contract. In last week's debate with Minogue, she said: "The Springfield courthouse was a sick building, and as governor, I wanted to build a new building so that people there were not continuing to get diseases and cancer and death. It went through a procurement process. A judge took a look at it and said the process was flawless."
A Hampden Superior Court judge ruled against losing developers who challenged the contract, saying he found no "legal or logical support" for conflict of interest claims.
When pressed on the signature fraud issue, Minogue said, "So, that was dealt with. But it was fraud. So it wasn't organized and protected. The issue with Maura Healey is no one is held accountable during her administration."
Pressed again to offer his opinion on the state of the MassGOP, Minogue said, "Oh, I hold everyone accountable."
"This is the problem, I'm not a politician. In the real world, you get fired immediately for these things," he said. "You don't get to do settlements and not be held accountable. We have corruption in our government, and you can be sure that when I'm governor, I'm going to make sure that people are held accountable."
