Former medical device executive Mike Minogue won Tuesday’s Republican primary for governor, according to an AP race call.
Minogue’s victory comes after a bitter primary battle with Brian Shortsleeve, a fellow businessman and military veteran who served in Republican Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration.
“What we need is an outsider that will come in and solve problems,” Minogue, a South Hamilton resident, told WBUR last month.
Minogue became the favorite in the race in April, when he received 70% of the votes during the MassGOP convention. Since then, he’s pressured Shortsleeve to drop out ahead of the primary.
Minogue, who has poured millions of his own dollars into his campaign, cited the overwhelming convention win to justify his avoidance of televised debates with Shortsleeve.
While they both agreed on cutting taxes, illegal immigration and criticized the Trump administration’s tariffs, Shortsleeve argued Minogue’s opposition to abortion rights makes him unpalatable among the moderate Massachusetts voters who will turn out in November.
After initially tacking right earlier in the campaign, Shortsleeve eventually pitched himself as a more moderate Republican, in the mold of two-term Republican Gov. Charlie Baker.
Up next for Minogue is a general election fight against Democratic incumbent Gov. Maura Healey. The former state attorney general won an open race for the governor’s office in 2022, beating the GOP’s Geoff Diehl, a conservative who had served in the Massachusetts House. Polls show this year’s election as hers to lose. Her campaign has already taken aim at Minogue for his support of President Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in the Bay State.
Andrea James is running for governor as an independent and will also be on the ballot.
For all Shortsleeve’s criticism of Minogue’s ability to win the general election against Healey, he told WBUR in July that he would support Minogue if he won the primary.
“ Healey’s gotta go, and I will be all in to support the winner of this primary,” Shortsleeve said.
Democratic and Republican candidates for governor run on a general election ticket with the winners of party primaries for lieutenant governor. Kim Driscoll, who has served as Healey’s No. 2 the last four years, is on the ticket with her.
New Bedford City Councilor Shawn Oliver was Shortsleeve’s choice, and now faces the awkward proposition of campaigning with Minogue, who criticized Oliver for helping knock out another Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in a signature-gathering snafu.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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