Massachusetts GOP is a House Divided: Moderates vs. Trump-backers

[essentialsaltes]

The Massachusetts Republican Party is a house divided.

The state is led by Gov. Charlie Baker, a popular moderate Republican who refused to support Donald Trump. But the chairman of the state party, which meets Wednesday night, is Jim Lyons, a conservative who backed Trump and argues the best way to grow the party is to embrace the former president's base.

But when Lyons backed an effort to expel Baker and Lt. Governor Karyn Polito from the party's executive committee, many Republicans thought he went too far.

[Vice chair] Mountain says Lyons and his backers didn't have the votes to oust Baker and Polito from the party's leadership, so they abandoned the effort.

But the schism remains — and it only widened following controversial remarks by Republican State Committee member Deborah Martell.

In a recent email, Martell wrote that she was "sickened" that a Republican congressional candidate, Jeffrey Sossa-Paquette and his husband, adopted two children. Many Republicans condemned the comments, including Baker.

All but one of the 30 Republican representatives in the Massachusetts House signed a letter on Friday demanding that Lyons call for Martell's resignation. But Lyons refused. He called Martell's comments "offensive," but said the party must be "unafraid to stand up against censorship and cancel culture."

 

[GreekOrthodox]

I used to live in MA and I'll say the typical MA Republican would be a Dem anywhere else. Generally, they were fairly moderate. The political squabbling in MA was tame compared to anywhere else.

 

[KCfromNC]

The easy solution there and elsewhere is for the party to split into two groups. Each run their own candidate against what will likely be a Democratic party challenger. Should be easy for one of the two ex-GOP candidates to get over 100% of their now split followers to vote for them and win the election. No worries.