Massachusetts not as friendly to outsiders like Trump, Sanders

Published 12:00 am Sunday, February 14, 2016

BOSTON – Billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders rode to victory Tuesday on a wave of anti-establishment sentiment in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

Sanders trounced former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton among Democrats, winning by more than 20 points with solid support from key groups such as women and younger voters.

Trump won the GOP with 35 percent of the vote, with Ohio Gov. John Kasich placing a strong second, followed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in third and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in fourth.

To be sure, Trump’s and Sanders’ chances of finding the same success over the border in Massachusetts are less certain, political observers say.

“Bernie has surprised everyone, but Massachusetts has an institutional blue streak that tends to go for the establishment candidates,” said Erin O’Brien, chairwoman of the political science department at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

“And Clinton enjoys deep support among Democratic leaders, as well as many voters,” she said.

Trump doesn’t have much traction among Republican leaders in the Bay State, though he has led the pack of GOP candidates in previous polls.

More than half of Massachusetts’ 4.1 million voters are registered independents — not affiliated with a major political party. There are more than 1.4 million Democrats and about 446,000 Republicans, according to Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office.

But, despite a tilt toward independents, the electorate typically favors more conventional candidates when it comes to picking presidential nominees.

Democrats in Massachusetts last veered from most of the country in 1992, when they threw in with a local, former U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas. He won just seven states in the primaries that year, finishing third to Bill Clinton, who was elected to the White House.

Overall, Massachusetts has a mixed record of choosing presidents. Since 1972, its Democrats have backed the party’s eventual nominee in only 6 out of 11 contests.

Two of those six, Barack Obama and Clinton, were sitting presidents running for reelection.

Republicans have picked the eventual nominee in 8 of 11 primaries since 1972. But five of the eight were incumbent GOP presidents.

Elsewhere, the race to succeed Obama is proving to be one of the most unpredictable in modern history, with pollsters and pundits scratching their heads over the rise of the anti-establishment candidates.

With Iowa’s caucuses and New Hampshire’s primary behind them, the presidential hopefuls are headed to Nevada and South Carolina, which hold caucuses and primaries between Feb. 20 and 27.

From there, the country’s attention will turn to Massachusetts and 10 other states voting in the “Super Tuesday” primaries on March 1.

While there haven’t been any recent polls to gauge voter sentiment, O’Brien said Clinton is likely to fare much better here than she did in New Hampshire.

She has locked down endorsements from most of the state’s top Democratic politicians including Attorney General Maura Healey and Senate President Stanley Rosenberg.

Many of the lawmakers representing the Merrimack Valley and North Shore are backing her including Sen. Barbara L’Italien, D-Andover, and Reps. Ted Speliotis, D-Danvers, and Ann Margaret Ferrante, D-Gloucester.

She also has the support of all but one of state’s all-Democratic congressional delegation; Sen. Elizabeth Warren hasn’t yet endorsed anyone.

Several members of the delegation have been actively campaigning on Clinton’s behalf.

“Hillary Clinton is a formidable candidate, and she knows that she’s going to fight for every vote in Massachusetts and elsewhere,” said U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Lowell, who traveled to New Hampshire to campaign for Clinton.

But Phil Johnston, former chairman of the state Democratic Party, is a Sanders supporter.

He thinks the senator’s platform of campaign finance reform, lowering the college tuition costs and addressing income inequality will appeal to many of the state’s progressive Democrats.

“He has a strong message that is resonating with voters across the board,” he said. “He’s like a latter-day Franklin D. Roosevelt with his ideas on economic inequality. He’s proven to be honest about his positions and cares about people.”

Johnston points out that Clinton’s embarrassing loss to Sanders in New Hampshire came even after many “surrogates” from Massachusetts aggressively campaigned on her behalf there, suggesting that her establishment support won’t be enough to win. Clinton barely eked out a win over Sanders in Iowa’s caucuses a week earlier.

Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Salem, a Clinton supporter, said Sanders’ victory in New Hampshire was impressive but won’t have much impact in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

Clinton’s record in Congress and with the Obama administration is unparalleled, he said.

“I think it will be a different story on Super Tuesday,” Moulton said. “Because, at the end of the day, Hillary Clinton is the best person to handle the many national security issues we face at home and abroad, and her political experience is unmatched.”

On the GOP side, the outcome is even less certain with so many candidates vying for the nomination. The state’s Republican establishment, which traditionally rallies behind a single candidate, remains fractured over the crowded ballot.

Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, endorsed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who dropped out of the race Wednesday after a disappointing sixth-place finish in New Hampshire. Christine won less than 2 percent of the vote in the Iowa GOP caucus. Baker told State House News Service this week that he might not endorse another candidate before the primary.

Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, who supports Kasich, said he thinks the grandson of coal miners who won his first election at age 24 will do well in Massachusetts, particularly among moderates who tend to shun conservatives.

“He has a message of substance, of uniting and healing and those things are attractive to most voters,” Tarr said.

Rep. Jim Lyons, R-Andover, is a Cruz supporter who thinks the conservative firebrand is winning over Republicans in the Bay State.

Cruz won the Iowa GOP caucus with 27 percent of the vote but garnered only 11.7 percent in New Hampshire.

“We’ve got a solid ground game and believe we have a real shot at winning the Massachusetts primary,” Lyons said.

Nationally, polls have shown that the public is fed up with politicians, big money in politics, income inequality and political correctness on both sides of the partisan divide, political observers say, which is driving support to outsider candidates.

Maurice Cunningham, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, said Sander’s and Trump’s victories in New Hampshire reflect deep, bipartisan anger at the political class.

Their success suggests that both the Democratic and Republican races will be long, acrimonious struggles to win the nominations both in Massachusetts and nationwide.

“There’s just a lot of anger out there,” he said. “That’s really become the central theme of this election cycle.”