Five of the last seven governors of Democrat-controlled Massachusetts have been Republicans.
Republican Mike Kennealy would make it six.
Mike who?
Mike Kennealy of Lexington, that’s who. Kennealy is a 57-year-old former business entrepreneur who found public service to be a second calling.
That second calling led him to leave the private equity world to serve in a variety of public service endeavors, beginning as special advisor to the turnaround of the Lawrence public school system.
In 2015, he joined GOP Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration as Assistant Secretary for Business Growth and later as Secretary of Housing and Development.
He most recently served as senior advisor and chief strategy officer at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston.
Now the would-be governor has already put up $2 million of his own money to get his campaign rolling.
He claims he has the “balanced experience” to be an effective governor who “can get the job done.”
“I believe in myself. I believe in the people. I believe I will be the governor,” Kennealy said over coffee.
Were he to do so, he would follow in the modern footsteps of a series of Republican governors who were able to get elected or serve in a heavily Democratic and progressive state. They were Bill Weld, 1991-1997; the late Paul Cellucci, 1997-2001; acting Gov. Jane Swift, 2001-2003; Mitt Romney 2003-2007, and Charlie Baker, 2015- 2023.
Republican Geoff Diehl would have been the sixth, but he was handily defeated by Democrat Maura Healey in the last election. Healey is running for reelection.
But the fact that a Republican can win the governorship in a heavily Democratic state has given hope to Kennealy and to fellow Republican Brian Shortsleeve, a former MBTA official under Baker, who is also running for governor.
“The state works better with Republican governors,” Kennealy said, even with a Legislature that is heavily controlled by the Democrats. “It will work better with my broad experience,” he added.
“At the end of the day, all people want is common-sense leadership,” he said.
But there is not much of that at the State House these days, according to Kennealy, and he has taken Healey to task over a variety of issues.
They range from her handling — or mishandling — of the costly illegal immigration invasion to forcing communities to build housing under the MBTA Communities Act.
He also chided Healey for siding with the rioters in Los Angeles by criticizing President Trump’s decision to send in the California National Guard. “This isn’t about politics, it’s about public safety,” he said, adding that Healey has “overstayed” her time as governor.
While he worked for Baker, when Baker signed the MBTA Communities Act that mandates MBTA adjacent communities build affordable housing, Kennealy did not support it, but proposed more voluntary housing collaboration between the state and the communities.
He said one of his first acts as a governor would be to amend the act. He will also seek to amend the misinterpreted state’s so-called “Right to Shelter Law” that has served as a magnet for illegal immigrants from around the world.
Signed into law by Gov. Michel Dukakis in 1983, the law was originally designed to provide housing and other benefits to homeless Massachusetts residents, not to illegal immigrants.
However, Healey and other progressive Democrats have parsed and skirted the law by calling illegal immigrants “residents.”
While Kennealy did not vote for President Trump in the last election, he, unlike Healey, said he would work with Trump, and he praised Trump for shutting down the border and halting Joe Biden’s disastrous open borders policy.
Healey, rather than attacking Trump, “should be thanking him for securing the border,” he said.
It is early in the 2026 campaign for governor and Kennealy is at this point relatively unknown.
He is the new kid on the block. But watch out. He’s been around.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
