As Massachusetts turns toward another general election, the race for governor should not be based on the usual partisan question of whether voters approve or disapprove of Maura Healey. The more useful question is what kind of governorship Massachusetts needs in its next chapter — and whether Healey has earned the opportunity to build one.
There is a strong case that she has. There is also a case that her administration might become more attentive to the gap between a policy announcement and what people are actually feeling through everyday costs and basic living expenses.
Healey, for whatever you think of her, has been one of the most visibly present governors Massachusetts has had. That matters especially in western Massachusetts, where residents have grown accustomed to statewide officials remembering that the commonwealth extends beyond Interstate 495 only when an election approaches. Healey has not governed that way. She and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll have been regular presences west of Worcester, appearing frequently for housing announcements and routinely stopping into small businesses.
The administration’s 413 Day announcements this year included investments tied to housing production and the outdoor economy across western Massachusetts. Having known her for some years now, I believe western Mass. is not a distant satellite of Boston for Healey. She knows that the Berkshires face their own economic realities and that Franklin and Hampshire counties cannot be treated as scenic afterthoughts.
Political presence is not merely symbolic. A governor who repeatedly enters a community is more likely to hear what does not travel neatly through Boston’s institutional channels. Healey deserves credit for making that effort, and western Massachusetts should be honest enough to acknowledge it. But a reelection campaign is an accounting, not a thank-you ceremony. Showing up is part of governing. It is not the whole of it.
Healey’s clearest vulnerability is affordability, beginning with energy. Massachusetts residents have watched utility bills become less predictable and, for many households, flat-out intolerable. The administration provided temporary winter relief and has advanced a broader energy-affordability agenda. Yet voters are entitled to ask who ultimately pays for short-term relief and whether Massachusetts can meet its climate obligations without placing a disproportionate burden on working families.
The transition to cleaner energy is necessary. It must also be competently managed. If the public comes to associate climate policy with punishing bills it cannot justify, support for the transition will erode. The state needs a clearer account of which costs can be reduced and why ratepayers seem to absorb the consequences of choices made far beyond their control. Healey’s challenge is not to retreat from the state’s climate goals, but to prove that decarbonization and affordability can exist in the same governing strategy. Too many people are struggling right now, and it has never been fair to consumers to carry the lofty burdens of our ambitious politicians, even for reasons of progress.
Housing remains the larger crisis beneath nearly every other one. It makes it harder for employers to retain workers and pushes younger residents to imagine their futures somewhere else. The Healey administration has moved aggressively on housing production. Still, success cannot be measured by legislation passed or units announced. It must be whether people can actually find homes they can afford and stay in them without being pushed out.
Difficult questions also surround the state’s social-service systems. The emergency family-shelter system came under extraordinary pressure as a longstanding right-to-shelter framework collided with a national migration crisis, a severe housing shortage and federal dysfunction. The administration had no cost-free choices, and some restructuring of the system was inevitable. The question is whether that restructuring addressed the underlying crisis or narrowed the number of families the state would accept responsibility for.
That distinction matters. The state is shrinking shelter capacity while families are still being turned away, and the governor’s proposed budget would reduce emergency-shelter spending as homelessness remains historically high. Controlling an unsustainable program is a legitimate governing objective, but restricting access does not make the need disappear. If the result is that costs once carried by the state reappear as trauma in a child’s life or a crisis handed down to a city with fewer resources, Massachusetts has not solved the problem. It has only moved it somewhere less visible.
This is the terrain on which the 2026 governor’s race ought to be contested. Republican nominee Michael Minogue has every right to challenge Healey on cost and management. But criticism alone is not an agenda. Any challenger asking voters to replace an incumbent must explain how he would lower bills, build housing and maintain a humane social safety net — not merely identify public frustration and attach the governor’s name to it.
Healey, meanwhile, should resist the temptation to make the election primarily a referendum on national Republicans or President Trump. Their policies matter enormously to Massachusetts, particularly where federal decisions affect health care, immigration, research funding and state finances. But voters elect a governor to govern the commonwealth in the conditions that exist, including hostile ones. Opposition to Washington can be part of Healey’s argument. It cannot substitute for a full account of Beacon Hill. Voters should not accept that.
Massachusetts voters should reject the false choice between uncritical loyalty and reflexive anger. We can appreciate a governor who has not forgotten western Massachusetts while demanding more from her administration. We can recognize that some crises were not created on her watch while still holding her responsible for the state’s response. We can believe that she has earned serious consideration for another term without treating reelection as an entitlement.
Healey has shown that she will come to every corner of the commonwealth. The question of this election is whether, in a second term, she can make state government work as present in people’s lives as it has been in their communities.
Shane L. Dillon of Springfield is a political commentator and former president of the Amherst College student body. He serves on Gov. Maura Healey’s Youth Advisory Council.