Maura Healey Might Not Be Ruling out a Run for Governor After All

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey arrives at a meeting of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015, in Boston. Healey said her office will submit recommendations around gambling consumer protection issues soon. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

‘Tis the season for gubernatorial speculation.

Attorney General Maura Healey, despite ruling out a run against Republican Gov. Charlie Baker in 2018, has been doing an awful lot to suggest she might just step into the ring.

The Democrat’s year-end fundraising push (she brought in $128,000 in December) rivals Baker’s, and her team has been less forceful in deflecting suggestions that she could run, the Herald‘s Joe Battenfeld notes today.

“The attorney general loves her job … and is focused on the critical work ahead,” spokesman David Guarino tells Battenfeld.

Pundits have noted a new energy on the left following the election of Donald Trump, with Massachusetts Dems taking new opportunities to jab the president-elect and the party he now represents.

Baker had infamously been a critic of Trump’s during the campaign, but has taken a more pragmatic stance post-election, arguing that he and his team will have to work with the new administration despite their obvious differences. He’s among the give-him-a-chance-to-lead crowd, and has said there’s “too much pre-judging going on here” about the president-elect.

Healey, if she ran, would likely contend with Newton Mayor Setti Warren, a Democrat, who has yet to formally announce his intention to run, but will almost certainly run.

She also has a war chest that, at less than $700,000, is still significantly smaller than her Republican would-be opponent’s, who has $4.6 million so far to spend on re-election, and on top of that is still one of the most popular governors on the planet.