Massachusetts Governor Healey reelection launch focuses on cost-cutting and Trump; Republicans respond

BY COLIN A. YOUNG

Jan. 20, 2026…..Exactly four years after she first asked voters to elect her to lead Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey officially launched her reelection campaign Tuesday morning, asking voters to keep her in the corner office for another four years.

The 54-year-old Arlington Democrat’s pursuit of a second term, with Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll on board once again, comes “with a commitment to improve the lives of all Massachusetts families, lower costs, and stand up to the Trump Administration’s harms,” her campaign said. A two-minute video that Healey launched with an updated campaign website casts President Donald Trump as a foil to the incumbent governor and someone who is “making everything worse.”

“I ran for governor to show up for people who need someone in their corner, to lower costs and increase opportunities. And we’re getting things done,” Healey says in the video. She touts her administration’s in-progress efforts to lower energy bills, having made community college free, steps towards building more housing across Massachusetts, reforms to state veterans services, and having “turned it around” at the MBTA.

The Healey campaign also highlighted her work to control health care deductibles and co-pays and to protect SNAP benefits from federal cuts, as well as legislation she signed to restrict renter-paid broker’s fees and to enact a series of tax cuts.

“But there’s more for us to do, a lot more, and that’s why I’m running for reelection: to lower costs, make life better and stand up to Donald Trump. He’s raising costs, taking away our health care and tearing families apart. We see the damage he’s doing to our state and our country, but we’ll never back down,” Healey says in the video.

The themes of Healey’s reelection launch are likely to be front-and-center again later this week when Healey delivers her State of the Commonwealth address to a joint session of the Legislature — and Bay Staters tuning in from all corners of the state, many of whom are just starting to pay attention to the governor’s race taking shape. Thursday evening’s speech is expected to focus on affordability and energy costs, and the governor is likely to highlight the values she believes are important to retain here while Trump works to move the country in a different direction.

A field of three Republicans has already formed to challenge Healey: Former Housing and Economic Development Secretary Mike Kennealy of Lexington, former MBTA Chief Administrator Brian Shortsleeve of Barnstable, and GOP booster and former medical device businessman Michael Minogue of Hamilton.

“Given the terrible record of Governor Maura Healey, our party has a solid path to victory in November of 2026. This field of candidates—Mike Minogue, Brian Shortsleeve, and Mike Kennealy—offers real strength. Any one of them would better govern our state,” MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale said in a December statement.

The Republican candidates have each pointed to the state’s high costs as a pivotal issue, and that topic is shaping up as a top pressure point for this year’s campaigns. Republicans plan to hold their nominating convention on April 25 and Democrats on May 30. Both conventions will be at the DCU Center in Worcester.

“Maura Healey does not deserve re-election by any measure. Massachusetts is now one of the top states for outmigration, we rank 47th in affordability, and our families pay the third-highest energy bills in the entire country – these are direct results of policies enacted and pushed by Maura Healey,” Kennealy said in a 5:45 a.m. response to Healey’s early-morning announcement. “These aren’t abstract statistics – they’re the real-world consequences of a Governor who has mismanaged the basics and refuses to take responsibility for the decline happening on her watch.”

In the 2022 election, Healey topped Republican Geoff Diehl with more than 1.58 million votes to about 860,000 for Diehl (64% to 35%). She secured 1.28 million votes in 2014, her first general election race for attorney general, and surpassed 1.87 million votes when she was reelected attorney general in 2018, according to state election records.

Healey launched her first campaign for governor four years ago, Jan. 20, 2022, by greeting voters outside the T station in East Boston’s Maverick Square. On that day, she pledged to make the state’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic “job one” and pointed to the cost of living in Massachusetts as one of the biggest issues that needed to be addressed, including the price of housing, child care, health care and gasoline.

Unlike four years ago, Healey this time around must actively run the state while asking voters to keep her on the job. Her official campaign launch and annual address to the state both come before she must file her annual budget plan, due by Jan. 28. One administration official said last week that the spending plan is going to land in “very tough fiscal times” and will feature “some really tough changes across the board everywhere.”