Seeking to capitalize on November wins, MassGOP trains local candidates for office

Nearly every county in Massachusetts showed gains in Republican support last November. State party leaders say they're now seizing on what they call a “turning point.”

To take advantage of the red undercurrent this past election cycle, the Massachusetts Republican Party this month launched free, bi-monthly candidate training sessions for those interested in running for local public office as Republicans.

While Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly supported the Democratic presidential nominee for the 10th-straight election on Nov. 5, President Trump won 87 of the state’s 351 cities and towns, flipping 33 that had supported former President Biden in 2020. In 2016, Trump won only 58 municipalities. The party also gained three seats in the state Legislature.

At its kick-off training session, MassGOP coached about 50 potential candidates at the Veterans of Foreign Wars center in Fall River. The next training is set for Saturday in Holyoke, followed by additional sessions in Lawrence and Worcester. MassGOP spokesperson Logan Trupiano said the party intentionally picked places that saw big shifts to the right.

Part of the strategy is “building the bench,” to get Republicans elected in municipalities and elevate potential candidates for the 2026 midterms, Trupiano said.

“We obviously want to elect a lot of people in 2026,” he said. “We’re going to have a pretty aggressive ground game there. We’re going to run a lot more candidates than we did this past cycle.”

MassGOP staff and operatives trained attendees on grassroots essentials like managing campaign finances, fostering local relationships, building teams, stirring constituent engagement, applying voter data and using social media.

Jessica Flynn, state party committeewoman for Norfolk and Middlesex counties, attended the first session to meet and encourage potential candidates.

“I think because of this training, more candidates will come forward with increased confidence in building a team to engage more voters,” Flynn said.

Michael McGee, who lives on Cape Cod, drove to the Fall River session after a friend messaged him the post on Facebook with a note: “Roadtrip?”

McGee is the director of events for 22Mohawks, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention among veterans and first responders.

Last election cycle, a friend asked him to help run his campaign for state Legislature, something McGee had never done before. Although his friend lost, McGee got his first taste of grassroots campaigning.

He said he got good advice at the Fall River session — asking your spouse to be your treasurer could bring additional stress, for instance, and avoid spending money on expensive campaign flyers. McGee said he might run for office himself one day.

Steve Koczela, president of The MassINC Polling Group, said state Republicans are wise to focus on growing future candidates for higher office.

“There are often gaps between candidates’ goals and their capabilities when it comes to just knowing how to run for office,” Koczela said.

Koczela pointed to Amy Carnevale’s election as party chair in February 2023 as a pivotal moment for Massachusetts Republicans. MassGOP had been decisively divided between the moderate faction of former Gov. Charlie Baker and the far-right party faction led by former chair Jim Lyons.

Carnevale walked into a fractured party that was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and losing seats. Since then Republicans have won multiple special elections and legislative seats.

“The party has had a period of turmoil going back a number of years now,” Koczela said. “It certainly is true that winning can help to bring people together, so that’s, I think, been useful.”

Trupiano, the party spokesperson, called it a rebuild.

“Now I feel like we’re at a point where we have our legs underneath us,” Trupiano said.

But Koczela noted that whichever party holds the White House tends to lose seats in the midterms. While 2024 was a good year for Republicans, 2026 may be less promising, and that will be the time to gauge the level of unity in the party.

“Massachusetts tends to be one of the bluest, if not the bluest, states in the country,” Koczela said, “so that’s going to pose significant challenges for any Republican running here, and any Republican trying to capture the momentum that Donald Trump created in a lot of parts of the country.”

In the coming months, Koczela said, it will be interesting to see if the Republican Party can manage to build a more diverse coalition than it has historically had.

“One of the questions that is going to be important for the next two years is: how do particularly Latino voters break down?” Koczela said. “They shifted considerably to the right in this most recent election. Some of that has to do with turnout, but some of it clearly also had to do with persuasion.”

For now, MassGOP has scheduled four sessions focused on municipal elections.

“If we feel like we should do more municipal, we'll do more municipal,” Trupiano said, but he added the party may pivot its focus to gear up for 2026 legislative seats.

The training sessions will likely "be something that you’re going to continuously see up until the elections, up until the campaigns actually start,” he said. “Because, again, we just want as many people in the pool. In a perfect world, we’d like to compete in as many races as possible.”

This story is part of a partnership between the WBUR and the Boston University Department of Journalism.