Every week, GBH News political reporter Adam Reilly runs down the big ways that the Trump administration and its decisions are intersecting with the politics and people of Massachusetts.
Reilly joined GBH’s Morning Edition fill-in host Craig LeMoult to share his analysis of the latest developments. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.
Craig LeMoult: We had some visitors here in Massachusetts, right? Texas lawmakers fled their state in order to avoid a vote that would redraw the state’s congressional maps. They’ve been scattered around the country. Some of that group showed up here and they got a pretty warm welcome from our governor.
Gov. Maura Healey, pre-recorded: We are welcoming and are proud to welcome members of the Texas State Legislature who are here today at the State House. We just had a meeting to listen to them, to hear from them about what it is that is happening in Texas.
LeMoult: Adam, why was Gov. Healey so pleased to see these Texas Democrats here in Boston?
Adam Reilly: I think Gov. Healey really relishes having a chance to be part of the national political conversation. This is something we’ve seen with her before. And this is the biggest story in national politics right now. I know you’ve been talking about it on the show this morning. If red states like Texas engage in flash redistricting right before the midterms, it could give the GOP continued control of the House unless Democratic states like California, New York and Illinois do the same thing to counter the GOP’s efforts. That is not an option here in Massachusetts, obviously. Healey and Democratic lawmakers can’t give the Democrats any more seats because the delegation is already all Democratic. Hosting some of the Texas legislators and helping them get their message out put Healey in the middle of the national political fray, at least for a few days. And I think she likes to be there.
LeMoult: While she was happy to see them, she’s clearly not happy about what their departure from Texas represents.
Reilly: No, not happy at all. You had Healey giving them, as we heard, this very warm welcome, while at the same time warning that what they’re experiencing and what brought them here is this very ominous national trend. Basically, Trump and his allies in red states seeking to leverage redistricting to guarantee that they can’t lose control of the government. Here’s a little more of Healey talking about what she thinks that represents.
Healey, pre-recorded: No matter what your party, no matter what your politics, democracy matters, free and fair elections matter. And it is on each of us, from wherever we are, to fight for that, to preserve that, to protect that fundamental truth of this great country. That is what these Texas legislators are doing.
LeMoult: As you mentioned, Massachusetts has an all-Democratic delegation here. President Trump actually singled out the state for criticism a couple of times this week, basically saying that it’s not right the delegation is all Democratic, since he got a chunk of the presidential vote here in 2024. Let’s take a listen.
President Donald Trump, pre-recorded: But in Massachusetts, so somebody used this as an example today, I was interviewed this morning, and they said, you know, it’s pretty unfair. Trump got 40%, I’m not proud of that, but I think I probably got more, but that’s OK. I got 40% in Massachusetts and yet they have 100% of the vote in terms of Congress. So there’s no Republican, there’s not anything. So we should have 40%. You know why? They redistricted.
LeMoult: Does the president have a point there?
Reilly: Well, the president, for starters, is overstating his performance in Massachusetts. He actually got 36% of the vote last time around. Not 40, not more than 40. He also is making it sound like Massachusetts changed its congressional maps in response to his performance. In fact, those maps were signed into law by former Gov. Charlie Baker, who was a Republican, back in 2021.
In the past, I think if you took all the communities that voted Republican for president and tried to make a congressional district out of them, you would have been hard pressed to do it because conservative votes tend to come in rural areas, the middle and western part of the state are real hotspots, along the New Hampshire border and on the south coast to an extent, and congressional districts need to be the same size. So usually what you need to do is anchor rural areas to urban areas that tend to vote Democratic. But now we have this interesting dynamic developing where in the last election we saw some urban areas tacking to the right — Fall River, Lawrence. It’s a new trend. One of the more interesting trends demographically in Massachusetts politics is the rightward shift in some of the so-called Gateway Cities. So now I think it is increasingly possible to imagine lawmakers, if they want to, and they probably don’t want to because they’re all Democrats, but if they wanted to, constructing a congressional district that would be at least highly competitive for a Republican candidate.
LeMoult: Yeah, I don’t see the Democrats doing that anytime soon. Back to Healey again for a bit. I’ve listened to you talk to Mark [Herz] every Friday here, and I’ve heard you say in this segment here that you see Healey as one of only a few Democrats who are gonna be in the party’s presidential mix come 2028. Do you still feel that way?
Reilly: Yeah, I definitely see her as one of them. Sometimes I think I’ve made those comments based on media that she’s done, very high-profile national media. But you can also just kind of hear it in the way she talks about politics. There is a consistent blend of her trying to accentuate the good things she believes she’s done here in Massachusetts with a bigger national case, which sort of sounds like she’s trying out a presidential stump speech. She still, of course, this is important to note, has to get through a re-election fight first. There are signs it’s going to be a pretty tough election fight.
LeMoult: You think so?
Reilly: Yeah. The polling has been on and off in terms of suggesting competitiveness or lack thereof, but there have been at least some polls that suggest that she’s not going to just cruise to re-election. And there are several Republicans who are running or have made noise about running. It’s a more robust Republican field than we’ve seen in the past. But if she does get through that, I firmly expect her to be part of the Democratic mix, along with other governors like Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, maybe Kathy Hochul from New York. So, yeah, I still feel that way. And I think we heard all the things I was talking about, the focus on local achievements like cutting taxes and then the sort of bigger national pitch, you know, making a case for the soul of democracy, as she was hosting the Republicans from Texas.
LeMoult: Which is another reason that she’s happy to be in the national news with the Texas Democrats.
Reilly: Always good to remind people you’re out there.
