This November, Massachusetts residents will have a choice between incumbent Democratic Governor Maura Healey and her well-funded Republican opponent: Mike Minogue – a former medical device company CEO and longtime party donor.
As he tells WAMC – he’s eager to make the switch to public servant and confront the state’s high cost of living.
As anyone who’s sat in West Springfield’s traffic for the last few days has learned, The Big E is back in town. One of the biggest fairs of its kind, the almost three-week event brings in thousands of visitors, hundreds of vendors and, of course, a number of political candidates looking to shake hands and make their pitch directly to voters.
On opening day, Mike Minogue was one of them – touring the grounds while getting in some carnival cuisine.
“I‘ve been having a lot of the sweets - I love apple cider donuts. I had a cannoli and I've got some other things I'll be eating as we go but I'm also looking forward to… roasted corn on the cob,” he while making the rounds with Eastern States Exposition CEO Gene Cassidy.
It wasn’t Minogue’s first stop in western Massachusetts this election cycle and likely won’t be his last as he looks to unseat Healey, who was at the fairgrounds earlier in the day.
After years of supporting Republicans himself, Minogue is trying his hand at running for office, campaigning on a record that includes his Army service and tenure at Abiomed in Danvers.
He also has a dominant primary win in-hand, as well as the endorsements of his opponents who vied for the party’s nomination earlier this year.
“I'm feeling great and we're going to make history Nov. 3, because people want a change - our entrepreneurs, our people are leaving, and the cost of living here is out of control, and people … are working just to pay their bills,” he told WAMC in front of the fairground’s Massachusetts state house. “We need to make sure that people can be here and make it the best place to live and to work and to raise a family, and people can have the American dream in Massachusetts.”
The campaign message has largely remained the same over the past few months. On Friday, Minogue reiterated the levels of outmigration the state’s faced in recent years, as documented by the Pioneer Institute.
Living in the state itself isn’t getting cheaper, either, with various outlets and reports indicating the Commonwealth’s among the most expensive in the nation.
Minogue’s campaign has featured heavy emphasis on that, as well as promises of a large-scale audit of Beacon Hill and tapping into the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit offered by the Trump administration.
“I saw that the state is going down the wrong path. My great-grandparents came from Ireland - my parents and my grandparents struggled and worked hard, and I want people to have the opportunity that I had and what's happening is, we're smothering the American dream with all our taxes and our regulations,” he said, adding that he planned to further slash utility bill fees and support gas tax holidays. “One of the reasons I'm running is to opt into the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, which, if I opt in, will create a $1.7 billion dollar fund that 85% of the parents will be eligible for, and parents can potentially get checks for $5,000 per student - that will transform education.”
While the tax credit made possible by the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act has come up often on the campaign trail – mentions of the president and the national party have been few and far between.
Minogue has previously acknowledged his support for the president. A 2024 fundraiser he hosted that involved Vice President JD Vance has routinely come up – treated by the Healey camp as an albatross around the candidate’s neck.
When asked what misconceptions some may have of his bid, Minogue echoed what he said a few days prior on WJAR – that his concern lies with state issues and that he’s a political outsider of sorts, albeit one with business acumen.
“I'm an outsider and I'm not a politician - I'm a leader. I have proven experience in the military in combat, I have experience running a company as the CEO of a healthcare business with Abiomed - I've been in the nonprofit space for the last decades and I give back to veterans and for causes for kids and healthcare and homelessness,” he said. “I'm not a politician - I'm running as an American, I'm running to be a public servant. I will not take a salary, and unfortunately, the politicians want us to hate each other and take extreme positions... Maura Healey's had four years with an entirely Democrat legislature, only now is she talking about fixing things. Her time is up. We need a new kind of governor because Massachusetts works for some, but not for all.”
As for his election odds – polling has not been too kind. August polling from both the University of New Hampshire and University of Massachusetts Amherst have Healey up 24 and 20 points, respectively, with a margin of error of 2.2 to 4.4 points.
It's a gap that will take more than fair visits to close, though compared to Healey's 2022 challenger, Geoff Diehl, Minogue has a sizable war chest.
According to the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance, Minogue has outspent Healey considerably — $9.4 million to Healey $2.2 million, as of September. He's also outraised her almost 3.5 to 1, albeit millions of those dollars came from Minogue himself.
All the same, Minogue hopes to close those polling gaps in the next month – all while leveling criticisms of Healey that are likely to appear in any future gubernatorial debates – if and when they materialize.
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WAMC notes Andrea James is also running in this year’s governor’s race as an independent candidate.
