On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump won the Massachusetts Republican primary in a roughly 60-40 split over former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. With Haley suspending her campaign the following day, any significant Republican opposition to the legally embattled Trump has been eliminated. For the Mass GOP, Trump’s Super Tuesday win comes at a time when the party is deep in the wilderness, with Democrats controlling every facet of state government. And it comes amid internal strife between party factions. WAMC spoke with Party Chair Amy Carnevale.
CARNEVALE: So, the Massachusetts Republican Party was really excited to see the voter turnout. Nearly 600,000 voters in Massachusetts cast Republican ballots. That's a high number, and nearly equal the number in 2016 when we had a very competitive Republican primary. We actually saw Democrats unenroll in their party and choose Republican ballots as well. So, it's hard to read into kind of why they were doing that, but it's exciting that they wanted to take part in the Republican primary and our goal for our party moving forward will be to try to keep them engaged in our party.
WAMC: So, at this point, is the Mass GOP firmly behind Trump as the candidate for 2024?
Yes, so, because Donald Trump received more than 50% of the primary vote – and in fact, it was close to 60%, in fact – he will receive all 40 delegates that Massachusetts will award at the Republican National Convention that will meet in July. And in addition, since Nikki Haley has now dropped out, we can now very clearly say that the Republican Party in Massachusetts is supporting Donald Trump for president.
Now, in the past, we've seen a lot of tension inside the Mass GOP between moderates that were reflected in people like Charlie Baker, the former governor, really at odds with the pro-Trump wing of the party. Can you speak to us about where things are at right now within the Mass GOP when it comes to some of those tensions?
So, for me, it's pretty clear, now that we're past the presidential primary, my focus is going to shift back on state races. And so, whether that's a State Senate race, State Representative races, or municipal races, we'll be working hard to recruit elect candidates up and down the ballot for those state and local races. And really, presidential politics will play itself out at a bigger level, but our focus will really be on those local races.
Let's turn to your party and your role in it. There's a more conservative wing of the party that has attempted to run a “Freedom Slate” of candidates to try to usurp your authority as a party chair. Can you talk to us about how that shaped out over the course of Tuesday?
Yeah, you know, there was this other slate that had been promoted it, and they billed themselves as a as a more conservative slate. But honestly, I continue to be focused on my job as party chair, and again, that's to recruit and elect Republicans, and as long as we're continuing to do that mission and actually elect Republicans- Which we, by the way, have done and over the last year, we elected a new state senator in a special election as well as held on to a state representative seat just yesterday. So as long as we're continuing to do that job, I'm going to let the politics play itself out and I'm comfortable with the committee that was elected yesterday and look forward to continuing to work with them in the weeks ahead.
Are you interested in pursuing a second term at this point? Is that something you think is viable for your role in the party?
So, I have 10 months left in my current term, so I'll be serving through January. So, I think it's premature at this point to say what I plan to do after that, and frankly, I would honestly want to wait until the results in November to make a decision about another term.
I wanted to ask you about a somewhat controversial candidate, Lori Kauffman, who your party spoke out against for making xenophobic, transphobic, and other remarks that that raised eyebrows. Any thoughts on that candidacy and that moment for the party?
Yeah, I'm really glad you raised that issue. As soon as we learned about her troubling background and her views that, frankly, have no place in American society, much less a major Republican Party, we took immediate action not only to denounce her views, but to urge her with to withdraw her candidacy for the state committee. So, we basically, we took every action that we could as a party to distance ourselves from her, and fortunately, the voters chose not to elect her yesterday. So, we were happy with that result. And again, as a party, we took every action to distance ourselves from her and her views.
What are your personal goals for the Mass GOP when it comes to state politics in 2024? What's on the table?
Well, we do have some exciting opportunities coming up with Democrats who have announced they're not running again. We have a number of seats down in Plymouth County, and we're also, we're looking at in Western Mass for some vacancies as well. So, it's identifying those opportunities where we have a real shot at winning more seats, and thinking about also some of the policies on Beacon Hill and trying to draw attention to them- Such as the migrant housing issue and the unsustainability of the current program. So just today, I know Representative Paul Frost offered an amendment to try to impose a residency requirement before eligibility for housing, so well as a party will be supporting efforts of Republicans to draw attention to that issue and trying to modify the current policy.
You've made a report to federal regulators about comments made by Jeff Kuhner on WRKO about you on his broadcast. Can you break down for us what it was that the radio host said that led you to file this complaint with regulators?
Yes. So, he used profanity in referring to me as party chair, which I felt really has no place on the radio and really was also inappropriate. He also alleged illegal activity between me and another radio host, which was completely specious and without merit. We had provided some documentation. So, it seemed to be to try to garner ratings. And so, we did file that complaint because we felt that it was inappropriate to use that sort of language, particularly talking about Republican women. This is at least the third instance of him using that that type of language for referring to Republican women, so, I felt it was important to kind of lay down the line and say, you know, politics are one thing, but profanity and allegations of illegal activity is a whole different level and really should not be, have a place on the communication and airwaves.
I wanted to ask you about the Mass GOP retweeting the Libs of TikTok account on Twitter- Formerly Twitter, now known as X.com. Libs of TikTok has been identified by many groups as stoking violence against folks in America and promoting conspiracy theories and generally being a space for far-right politics. Can you speak to that decision to amplify the message of that account?
Um, you know, it's not something that I had- That was tweeted by our communications director. I'm happy to think about that. Um, yeah, so I'm happy to kind of take that, take that question and think about it a little bit more. It was certainly not a conscious decision I made. But you know, I know sometimes they do kind of poke fun at issues, but I understand the concern as well.
Lastly, what do you see as the major issues facing Massachusetts, that the Mass GOP wants to see action taken on?
Well, I referenced earlier the migrant crisis issue. We think that that that needs action, and then in just in general, the affordability in Massachusetts, so thinking about things like taxes, and I know that the Healey administration is thinking about working with legislature to propose some increased taxes, and we just think that that's the wrong time for our residents in Massachusetts. So those are the two key issues for us: affordability, taxes, as well as that the migrant crisis issue.
