GOV. MAURA HEALEY and GOP gubernatorial candidate Mike Minogue announced that they’ve agreed to participate in general election debates this fall – just not the same ones.
Healey has committed to participating in two October debates, her campaign announced Monday around 2:50 p.m. WBZ-TV will host one moderated by political analyst Jon Keller. WCVB, WBUR and The Boston Globe, in partnership with The Bay State Banner and El Planeta, will host the other.
Minogue’s campaign just after 4:30 p.m. Monday announced that he had agreed to a general election debate hosted by Boston 25, GBH and New England Public Media in partnership with El Planeta and The Bay State Banner. The campaign said it’s expected to take place after Labor Day, though the date, time and format will be finalized “once confirmed by the candidates and the participating media organizations.”
Asked if GOP gubernatorial candidate Brian Shortsleeve has agreed to any general election debates, the Shortsleeve campaign said he has agreed to all of them.
While Minogue said in a statement that he looks “forward to debating” Healey, Minogue and Shortsleeve will have to first go head-to-head in the September 1 GOP primary election. Minogue clinched the GOP endorsement after the party’s April convention, at which he received 70.38 percent of delegate votes to Shortsleeve’s 15.5 percent. In a June Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll of 500 Massachusetts registered voters, Minogue and Shortsleeve received 31 percent and 29 percent of support, respectively, to Healey’s 56 percent.
The two Republicans are not slated to debate each other before the primary election. Shortsleeve has called on Minogue to participate in primary debates, arguing that the lack of debate hurts the Republican party at large, though Minogue said during a radio appearance in July that there will be “no debate” ahead of September 1 and that he is “very focused on the general election.”
The Minogue campaign did not immediately reply to inquiries about whether Minogue was also invited to the debates Healey agreed to, and if so, why he declined to commit to them. The Healey campaign also did not provide an answer as to whether Healey was invited to the debate Minogue agreed to, and why she declined if so.
Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll has also agreed to face “her eventual Republican opponent” in a debate hosted by GBH and Boston Public Radio’s Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, according to the Healey-Driscoll campaign. The GOP-endorsed candidate for lieutenant governor, Anne Brensley, pivoted her campaign to run for secretary of state as a write-in candidate in the primary. Now-former candidate Anne Manning-Martin was kicked off the ballot after the state’s highest court issued a ruling in a signature fraud case – one of several that has exposed rifts within the party. The remaining Republican LG candidate, New Bedford city councilor and state correction officer Shawn Oliver, has been running a campaign aligned with Shortsleeve.
