Massachusetts
The Trump problem in Massachusetts – The Boston Globe
Minogue would be wise to focus on state politics, not Trump policies
By Abdallah Fayyad
Moderate Republicans have become a rare breed in Massachusetts. President Trump and his politics loom large in the state, and his polarizing actions have only strengthened the Democrats’ grip on power. Since former governor Charlie Baker, a Republican, left office, the GOP has been effectively locked out of state government, and there’s little reason to believe that’s going to change anytime soon.
The Massachusetts Republican Party has now endorsed Mike Minogue, a former biotech executive, as its candidate for governor. Mike Kennealy, who served as the secretary of housing and economic development under Baker, was viewed as the more moderate candidate. But the state party resoundingly rejected him: 70 percent of the party’s delegates at the nominating convention chose Minogue over Kennealy and Brian Shortsleeve, a former MBTA general manager. While Shortsleeve will still be on the primary ballot in September, Kennealy was eliminated, since he did not clear the 15 percent threshold required to make the ballot.
Minogue, who has poured some $12.5 million into his campaign, is a prolific Republican donor, and he even hosted Vice President JD Vance at a fund-raiser last year. Regardless of how much he tries to court moderate voters across the state, it will be extremely difficult for him to meaningfully distance himself from Trump between now and November.
It’s not just a matter of optics. Minogue has wasted no time making his priorities known, and he’s aligned himself with several key Trump policies, promising to get “criminal illegal immigrants off our streets” and declaring that “girls need fair and safe sports.” That sort of politics may have helped Trump win the presidency in 2024, but it won’t help Minogue in a state where Trump got only 36 percent of the vote.
If Minogue wants to have any shot at all at winning the governor’s race, he would be wise to just focus on state politics. He drew raucous applause from the convention crowd, for example, when he pledged that he would repeal the MBTA Communities Act, which encourages building denser and transit-oriented housing and was signed into law by Baker. While I think that law is important in combating Massachusetts’ housing crisis, it’s proved to be controversial and has generated substantial backlash, even in liberal parts of the state.
A talented politician could use issues like that to make Governor Maura Healey, a Democrat, worry. But as long as the Massachusetts GOP keeps aligning itself with Trump — and as long as Trump is still president — Healey will cruise to reelection without breaking a sweat.
Mike Minogue’s kiss of death
By Joan Vennochi
Mike Minogue made his money and mark in business selling pumps for artificial hearts.
Now, as the Massachusetts Republican Party’s endorsed candidate for governor, he must win over enough voters’ hearts to defeat Governor Maura Healey, a Democrat.
That’s a tough sell for Minogue, who last year hosted Vice President JD Vance at a fund-raiser and donated to President Trump’s re-election bid and the Republican National Committee.
In a recent WBUR profile, the former head of Abiomed also said, “I am pro-life. I support a culture of compassion and life. I spent a career in the medical device industry helping to save lives, young and old, and I also think that we can do more to help people in a time of crisis.”
Nicely put, but still a kiss of death with the state’s liberal voters.
Within the tiny universe of Republican activists who attended last weekend’s convention, Minogue had four advantages: private-sector success, a military background (he’s a West Point graduate and served in Iraq), no other big races to be voted on, and lots of his own money to spend on organizing.
Of the three candidates seeking the party’s endorsement, Minogue was also the most politically conservative. But what made him attractive to the Trumpian base that now controls the Massachusetts GOP makes him a very challenging sell as a statewide candidate.
Out of the state’s 5.5 million registered voters, only 420,000 are Republicans. To have any chance at beating Healey, he has to do what every successful Republican gubernatorial candidate has done — tap into the 3.25 million voters who are registered as unenrolled or independent, and who make up the largest voter pool.
To woo them, Minogue will likely try to focus on management and fiscal issues. According to a recent UNH Survey Center poll, 49 percent of Massachusetts residents approve of Healey’s handling of the job, 45 percent disapprove, and 6 percent don’t know or are undecided. She gets her worst ratings on her handling of taxes, the economy, housing, and the cost of living.
While that might seem like an opening, Massachusetts Democrats will surely do everything they can to hang Trump around Minogue’s neck. He also has a primary fight with Brian Shortsleeve, the other Republican who won enough votes at the convention to get on the ballot.
That GOP primary fight could push the candidates even further to the right. If it does, the GOP can forget about beating Healey.
Even if it doesn’t, I still think the woebegone Red Sox have a better chance at winning the World Series than any Massachusetts Republican has at winning the governor’s office.
The issues that could sink Healey (if only Trump weren’t president)
By Charles Chieppo
The Republican convention that endorsed Mike Minogue to be the GOP standard-bearer for governor was a low-turnout affair, as is too often the case with Republican politics in Massachusetts.
At the convention, only about 1,800 out of more than 4,000 eligible delegates cast a vote. Next comes the primary on Sept. 1, when Minogue will face venture capitalist and former MBTA chief Brian Shortsleeve, who finished a distant second at the convention. Chances are good that that race will be closer.
Like recent Republican governors in Massachusetts, both candidates promise to make the Commonwealth more affordable and business-friendly, and both pledge to control state spending. But unlike their predecessors, they also warn about the high cost of illegal immigration. Neither is critical of the Republican president. And while they share many positions — both running primarily on pocketbook issues — Minogue calls himself a “born-again Catholic” and is anti-abortion, while Shortsleeve is largely silent on the issue.
History teaches us that the eventual nominee is likely to move to the center during the general election. But does that mean the eventual Republican nominee will at some point criticize President Trump? Hard to say.
The two candidates have no shortage of ammunition to use against the almost certain Democratic candidate, Governor Maura Healey. For a decade beginning in 2010, Massachusetts had the second highest rate of business formation among the states, but between January 2020 and September 2024, we had the lowest net rate of any state. Today Massachusetts is one of just four states to have fewer private-sector jobs than in 2020. Outmigration has risen dramatically since 2012.
Housing, health care, and energy costs are through the roof, and taxes are high compared to other states. A key reason is that Massachusetts spends too much. Since 2010, median household income has grown by 13 percent, but real state spending is up 28 percent.
Healey has taken steps to address the housing shortage by limiting the power of municipalities to stop development and making surplus state land available for housing. But she has shown little stomach for challenging her party and its interest groups by reining in state government and cutting high costs that are eroding the Commonwealth’s competitiveness.
As is usually true, the case against one-party government is strong. Nonetheless, there’s a simple reason why the outlook remains grim for Massachusetts Republicans this November: Trump.
Trump’s tariffs have exacerbated the affordability problem he pledged to fix. Rather than addressing the nearly $38 trillion national debt that looms over our children, the United States spends $2 billion a day fighting Iran – precisely the kind of “forever war” he promised to avoid.
Many Trump policies hit Massachusetts especially hard. His war on immigration extends to highly educated immigrants on whom Massachusetts depends to make up for losses to outmigration, and cuts to university and medical research strike at the heart of the state economy.
Absent Trump, this fall’s election might be a real opportunity for the Massachusetts Republican Party. But anti-Trump fervor is likely to drive turnout among Democrats and independents eager to register their disdain.
Charles Chieppo is the principal of Chieppo Strategies, a public policy communication firm, and a senior fellow at Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based public policy think tank.
This is an excerpt from Globe Opinion’s weekly politics newsletter Right, Left, and Center. Sign up here to get it delivered directly to your inbox.
Abdallah Fayyad can be reached at abdallah.fayyad@globe.com. Follow him @abdallah_fayyad. Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at joan.vennochi@globe.com. Follow her @joan_vennochi.
Massachusetts
Meteor over Massachusetts causes explosion reports, sightings from Delaware to Montreal
Reports of an explosion from people across New England Saturday afternoon sent police agencies and others scrambling to understand what caused a double boom that shook buildings in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The American Meteor Society said that the booms heard about 2:30 p.m. were actually caused by a meteor about 3 feet (nearly 1 meter) wide entering the atmosphere around the New Hampshire border with Massachusetts, north of Boston.
Fire program monitor Robert Lunsford said the society received dozens of reports from Delaware to Montreal with people either hearing the double boom, feeling the ground shake or seeing the fireball — which he said looked like a shooting star in the daytime sky.
“It was definitely bigger than a normal fireball, about a yard wide,” he said.
But Lunsford said it’s unlikely the meteor struck the ground.
“We would need more information about the trajectory the speed and other aspects to know for sure if it hit the ground, but if it didn’t burn up, then it would have landed in the ocean,” he said. “Most of them do burn up before they hit the ground.”
People in a handful of states posted on social media about feeling the buildings they were in shaking. Several videos on the X platform captured what sounded like two quick booms, with no fire, smoke or other visual causes.
Several people filed reports with the U.S. Geological Survey, registering the shaking they felt with the National Earthquake Information Center, agency spokesman Steve Sobie confirmed.
The agency opened an event page, based on the number of “Did you feel it?” reports it received on its website. But Sobie said there was no event registered on the agency’s seismographs. meaning the shaking was not due to an earthquake.
A Greenfield, Massachusetts family of four were among the five killed when a bus plowed into vehicles on a Virginia highway early Friday morning. A 25-year-old woman from Worcester was also killed in the crash.
It comes as investigators are trying to piece together what happened in the collision that injured dozens more.
There is profound sorrow in the Greenfield community. Heartbroken family members say Dmitri Doncev, 45, his wife Ecterina, 44, their 13-year-old daughter Emily and 7-year-old son Mark all died after a charter bus slammed into their car and others on I-95. The Worcester woman who was killed was in another SUV struck by the bus.
They Doncev family were devoted members of a Russian Baptist Church who were heading to a wedding in South Carolina.
The heartbroken family sent WBZ a statement saying, “Today, words cannot adequately express the pain and sorrow felt by their family, friends, church community, coworkers, classmates, and all who had the privilege of knowing them. Their absence leaves a void that can never be filled, but their memories, their love, and the countless lives they touched will remain forever in our hearts.”
“Though their time with us was far too short, the legacy of kindness, faith, perseverance, and love that they leave behind will continue to inspire all who knew them,” the statement said.
Providence Christian Academy said the children attended the school saying in a statement, “The Doncev family was a cherished part of our school community, and their loss is being felt deeply by our students, families, faculty, and staff.”
Greenfield Mayor Greenfield Mayor Virginia DeSorgher also said in a statement:
“To the families, friends, and neighbors of those we lost: there are no words that can fully ease the weight of this sudden and unimaginable grief. Please know that you are not walking through this dark time alone. The Greenfield community stands with you, mourning alongside you, and we extend our absolute deepest condolences and prayers.”
Investigators say the bus did not slow down in a work zone, hitting several cars in front of it. Passengers on the bus woke up to chaos.
“It was horrible,” said bus passenger Wayne Tobin. “It was just like blood everywhere; it was people holding their head. Their heads were bleeding.”
In all, about 44 people were rushed to area hospitals.
State police identified the bus driver as 48-year-old Jing Dong. He could be facing charges in the crash.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X that Dong was an American citizen originally from China who got his commercial driver’s license two years ago in New York.
A bus crashed into vehicles slowing for a work zone on Interstate 95 in Virginia early Friday, killing five people and injuring dozens, including the driver, authorities said.
The crash happened at about 2:35 a.m. on southbound I-95 in Stafford County, near Quantico. All five of the people who died were in vehicles hit by the bus, and 44 people were taken to hospitals, including three in critical condition, police said.
“The preliminary investigation indicates that traffic was slowing southbound for an upcoming work zone,” state police said in a news release. “A bus failed to slow for traffic and struck six vehicles.”
Police said there were “approximately” 34 passengers on the bus.
“We’ve got patients in multiple hospitals. We’ve got the driver at a hospital here,” said Peyton Vogel, a Federal Transit Administration spokesperson who was on the scene. “I’ve got to say, this is one of the most tragic things I’ve ever seen. Absolutely tragic.”
Four of the fatalities were in one car, which caught fire. State police said the victims were a 45-year-old male, a 44-year-old female, a 13-year-old female and a 7-year-old male, all from Greenfield, Massachusetts. The fifth victim, a 25-year-old female from Worcester, Massachusetts, was in an SUV that was struck by the bus.
Virginia State Police Virginia State Police The aftermath of a deadly bus crash on I-95 in Virginia’s Stafford County on Friday, May 29, 2026.
Reaction to the deadly crash in Massachusetts
The mayor of Greenfield, Virginia Desorgher, issued a statement on the deaths of four city residents in the crash.
Our entire community is shocked and profoundly heartbroken by the tragic news coming out of Virginia. Early this morning, a horrific crash took the lives of five people, and we have received the painful confirmation that four of those individuals were residents of Greenfield.
To the families, friends, and neighbors of those we lost: there are no words that can fully ease the weight of this sudden and unimaginable grief. Please know that you are not walking through this dark time alone. The Greenfield community stands with you, mourning alongside you, and we extend our absolute deepest condolences and prayers.
We are also holding the dozens of others who were injured in this crash in our thoughts, wishing them a full and swift recovery.
The City of Greenfield is fully committed to supporting those affected by this horrible loss. In the coming days and weeks, we will work to ensure that the grieving families have access to the resources, care, and comfort they need. I ask all Greenfield residents to wrap your arms around our neighbors with the compassion, kindness, and unity that defines our community.”
Update on investigation in Virginia
State police identified the bus driver as Jing S. Dong, 48, of Staten Island, New York. Charges are pending, authorities said.
Mary Washington Healthcare said it received 19 patients from the crash. It posted online that seven of the patients were taken to its trauma center in Fredericksburg, where four were being discharged and three remained in treatment — one in serious condition and two in critical condition. Twelve were taken to its hospital in Stafford, where they were later discharged in good condition.
The National Transportation Safety Board posted online that it was sending a “go-team” to conduct a safety investigation into the crash and that it would have a spokesperson at the scene.
The southbound lanes had reopened by noon, but traffic was still backed up for a couple of miles, according to a state transportation advisory.
Bus company had satisfactory record
The bus was operated by E&P Travel Inc., based in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. A compliance snapshot from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration showed only one injury accident involving the company’s vehicles in the previous two years and listed its safety rating as “satisfactory.”
The company was incorporated Nov. 24, 2023, by Shuo Liu, according to records from the North Carolina Secretary of State’s office. Liu is also listed as the registered agent. The FMCSA site said the company operated four vehicles and had 11 drivers.
While it is too soon to say what caused Friday’s crash, federal authorities have been grappling with interstate passenger bus safety issues for decades.
Following a series of passenger bus crashes in 2008 that killed 41 people, the U.S. Department of Transportation published a Motorcoach Safety Action Plan.
The NTSB investigated 16 fatal motorcoach crashes between June 1998 and January 2008, finding that driver-related problems such as fatigue, medical condition and inattention accounted for 56 percent of the accidents. The agency said driver-related problems were responsible for 60 percent of the fatalities in those crashes.
Among the actions recommended were creation of a pre-employment driver history screening program and a national drug- and alcohol-testing database “to enable motorcoach operators to determine if drivers have a history of violating DOT alcohol or drug rules.”
-
Washington, D.C5 minutes agoTexas man indicted in shooting near Washington Monument that left bystander hurt
-
Cleveland, OH8 minutes ago3 Options For the Cavaliers to Replace GM Mike Gansey
-
Austin, TX13 minutes agoOne dead, victim unidentified after APD responds to deceased person call in South Austin
-
Alabama20 minutes agoLive Game, Weather Updates: Tuscaloosa Baseball Regional, No. 7 Alabama vs. USC Upstate
-
Alaska23 minutes agoWayne and Wanda: I’m ready to break up with Alaska but facing resistance from everyone
-
Arizona28 minutes agoWhy Milan Momcilovic Choosing Arizona Would Be Tough Blow for Iowa State Basketball
-
Arkansas35 minutes agoBaseball notebook: Kansas and Arkansas to play in winner’s bracket
-
California38 minutes agoCalifornia governor’s race tightens as primary day approaches
