A YEAR AGO, when Donald Trump was on the verge of returning to the White House for a second term, he was barely a shadow in Gov. Maura Healey’s annual address. She never said the name “Trump,” and the only mention of a US president was a passing reference to John F. Kennedy’s 1961 speech in the same room where she stood.

Not so much any more.

Healey on Thursday did not hesitate to bash Trump in her latest State of the Commonwealth speech. Life here is too expensive, she said, and the president is “making it worse.” Healey said Trump “throws tantrums like a two-year-old,” and she slammed the aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement campaigns unfolding across the country as failing to make America safer.

“In this moment, my job as governor is to provide what the federal government isn’t: stability, security, and how about a little common sense?” she said, looking out over the assembled crowd of deputies, lawmakers, labor leaders, and other guests who filled the House chamber.

Two big things have changed to fuel Healey’s more assertive, prosecutorial tone this time around. Massachusetts has now experienced a full year of impacts from Trump 2.0, from massive federal funding cuts to food aid delays to business-spooking tariffs. It’s also an election year for Healey, who is hoping to secure another term in large part by contrasting herself with a president who remains deeply unpopular with Massachusetts Democrats and independents.

The governor and Legislature will have an array of challenges to navigate in 2026. Changes in Washington are punching holes in the state’s budget, and job growth remains relatively flat.

“It’s true we’re facing real headwinds,” Healey said about the economy. “There’s certain things we know are beyond our control. We can’t control inflation. But there are things we can control, and I also want to say this: We have assets that any other state would trade for in a heartbeat.”

Healey dedicated much of her speech to now-repetitive themes of making Massachusetts more affordable and attractive families and businesses, with most of her newest ideas representing modest changes that could nibble at the edges of the affordability debate while the Legislature takes its time weighing bigger proposals.

Healey acknowledged the state’s sky-high housing costs, which polls show is a top concern of voters, but she offered few new initiatives of note. She said the administration will deploy $25 million to help 1,000 middle-income households with down payment assistance, and would put more funding toward lowering mortgage rates for first-time homebuyers through MassHousing.

The governor also pointed to fairly small-bore recent moves, like a 2024 law that makes it easier to build accessory dwelling units and a budget rider that limited landlords from passing broker fees on to renters.

When it comes the state’s high health care costs, her mention of a policy rolled out last week to cut down on prior authorization — a practice in which health insurers require pre-approval before greenlighting certain types of care or medications — drew one of the loudest applause breaks of the night. (Two even bigger cheers came when Healey recognized a pair of local celebrities: Phil Eng, the decidedly unflashy general manager of the MBTA whose steady efforts to get the beleaguered transit agency back on track have given him surprising star power, and Dropkick Murphys frontman Ken Casey, who was seated in the gallery next to Joanna Lydgate, the governor’s partner.)

Healey also signaled she will file regulations that would ban medical debt from being reported to credit agencies.

“It’s bad enough to get a huge bill when you’re dealing with an illness,” she said. “It shouldn’t wreck your credit, too.”

On another front, Healey — speaking as “someone who’s got two kids at home” — said she will file legislation in the coming weeks to impose stricter age protections on social media companies.

The forthcoming bill will largely mirror legislation Attorney General Andrea Campbell proposed last year, according to Healey’s office. Campbell also sued Meta, the giant behind Facebook and Instagram, a case that emerged before the state’s highest court last month.

“These platforms are built with addictive algorithms. They exploit our insecurities, especially our young people,” Healey said, adding that her legislation would require “parental consent [and] age verification for all of these platforms.”

Healey offered an affordability-themed appetizer to her speech Thursday morning. Hours before she ascended the rostrum, she announced a new plan to provide a bit of relief on high utility bills this winter.

The state will redirect $180 million in payments from utilities, which otherwise would have gone toward clean energy and energy efficiency programs, toward taking 15 percent off residential electric bills in February and March.

Electric utilities also plan to postpone about 10 percent of bill costs from the winter months, and instead collect that from ratepayers between April and December. All gas utilities except will do the same, with plans to collect the deferred 10 percent from May through October.

The relief is essentially a short-term fix while Healey waits for her counterparts in the Legislature to get around to her pitch for longer-term solutions.

Back in May, more than half a year before the coldest months and another round of spiking bills were set to arrive, Healey filed legislation with a suite of reforms she said would save ratepayers $10 billion over a decade.

But the Legislature, as it is wont to do, has shown little urgency getting to the topic. Lawmakers hosted a public hearing in June to learn more about the governor’s ideas. Five months later, top representatives began moving a redraft of the bill that added in controversial language to defang the state’s 2030 decarbonization goals; when those changes ran into a buzzsaw of opposition, House leaders retreated.

Representatives met behind closed doors this week to discuss a path forward for Healey’s bill, after which top Democrats questioned just how much power the state even has to rein in utility bills amid federal opposition to clean energy sources, according to State House News Service.

The State of the Commonwealth address came two days after Healey made official her reelection campaign in a video that — not unlike her speech — accused Trump of “making everything worse” and put lowering costs as a central pledge.

Expect to hear that message plenty more in the next 10 months.