Photo: Courtesy of the Maura Healey Campaign.
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Democrat Maura Healey is projected to win the 2022 gubernatorial election to become the governor of Massachusetts starting in January, according to the Associated Press.
Healey, who was born in Maryland and raised in New Hampshire, will be the first openly LGBTQ+ governor for the state, as well as the first women elected to the office (Jane Swift was the first woman to hold the office from her position as lieutenant governor). Serving as the 44th Attorney General of Massachusetts, the Democratic nominee brought suits against Exxon Mobil on climate change, Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family on the opioid epidemic, and created the first Community Engagement Division in the office to send representatives into the communities.
Maura Healey beat Republican Geoff Diehl.
Diehl held office as the Massachusetts State Representative for the 7th Plymouth district until 2019, during which time he worked on the House Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change and House Committee on Technology and Intergovernmental Affairs to name a couple. Diehl was also a notable lead supporter of the ballot question campaign to repeal the Massachusetts gas tax indexing law in 2014. The Republican nominee, a native to Pennsylvania, challenged incumbent Democratic Elizabeth Warren for her United States Senate seat in the 2018 election, to which he was unsuccessful.
After Governor Charlie Baker announced he would not seek re-election for a third term, Diehl and Healey launched their campaigns— focusing on issues of reproductive rights, COVID-19 vaccine mandates, immigration, and renewable energies in the state.
Healey has said over the course of her campaign that policies she would develop in office would include clean energy iniativies to transition the state over to sustainable sources, criminal justice reform, particularly to see through the implementation of the 2020 police reform bill, and funds through the Student Opportunity Act to impoverished school districts. Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Healey made commitments to protect state reproductive rights and abortion access by shielding providers from civil and criminal liability, barring state workers from assisting related out-of-state investigations, and increasing access to contraception by calling on the Department of Public Health to issue a standing order for free pharmacy inventory.
Democratic lieutenant governor nominee Kim Driscoll will step into the office from her position as Mayor of Salem, a North Shore city that's just come off one of its busiest tourist seasons in recent years.
Democratic nominee for Governor Maura Healey (left) and Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll (right).Photo: Photo Courtesy of Meredith Neirman
In the Democratic Primary, Healey beat out Sonia Chang-Diaz for the party nomination back in September. At the announcement of Healey's campaign, Andrea Campbell and James McMahon began running for the office of Attorney General.
Healey's campaign was endorsed by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representative Ron Mariano, and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
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