Popular incumbent Gov. Charlie Baker will face former state budget chief and health insurance executive Jay Gonzalez in a general election matchup pitting two candidates against each other with competing visions for how the state should pay for education, housing and transportation now and into the future.
Baker, who cruised to a primary victory Tuesday over conservative Springfield pastor Scott Lively, highlighted his opposition to higher taxes in a victory speech at a restaurant in Dorchester, also touting 180,000 new jobs since he took office and a record low high school dropout rate.
Gonzalez, meanwhile, launched his general election campaign promising to deliver affordable child care and pre-school in his first term, to “fully fund” public education and to move Massachusetts to a single-payer health care system.
“I get it. It is a relief to have a governor who seems nice and isn’t a crazy right wing extremist. With Donald Trump setting the bar so low, nice and not crazy seems pretty good. But it’s not good enough. Not for us,” Gonzalez said.
Both Baker and Gonzalez looked poised to win by similar margins, each with roughly 65 percent of the vote in their respective party primaries with more than two-thirds of the votes counted, though the number of Democratic ballots cast far exceeded those voting in the GOP primary.
Gonzalez, who served in Gov. Deval Patrick’s cabinet before leaving government to run the health insurance company CeltiCare, solidly defeated Bob Massie, a Somerville environmental activist and entrepreneur, in a primary contest that came to be seen as the classic insider-versus-outsider contest.
The first-time candidate sold himself as a leader with the experience on Beacon Hill to deliver on his campaign promises, which include progressive tax reform that will ask the wealthy to pay more to invest in transportation infrastructure and early education.
“There’s going to be a very clear choice in this election,” Gonzalez told reporters, indicating his hope to harness some of the energy on the Democratic side that helped sweep progressives like Ayanna Pressley into office on Tuesday night.
Gonzalez will run against the GOP ticket of Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito with former Obama administration official Quentin Palfrey, who defeated political satirist and comedian Jimmy Tingle in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.
Baker, who accepted his party’s nomination at Venezia restaurant in Dorchester, ticked through many his administration’s accomplishments, from partnerships with municipalities to clean energy promotion and moving the homeless out of hotels and motels.