Former Charlie Baker deputy Mike Kennealy launches campaign for Mass. governor

Mike Kennealy, a former private equity manager who spent four years as state housing and economic development secretary under Gov. Charlie Baker, declared his candidacy for Massachusetts governor on Monday and said the state is "heading in the wrong direction." 

Jumping into the ring against Gov. Maura Healey, who plans to seek reelection in 2026, Kennealy released a launch video Monday morning. He pointed to rising expenses, education, the emergency family shelter crisis and outmigration as key areas where the Bay State is struggling.

"The political class on Beacon Hill is more concerned with their future than with ours. Our beacon on a hill has become a beacon in the rearview mirror," Kennealy said in the video. "The people of Massachusetts expect and deserve better."

Watch the full announcement below:

Although the press release announcing Kennealy's campaign launch made no mention of his party affiliation, a spokesperson confirmed he is running as a Republican.

But asked whether he's a moderate, in his first TV interview as a candidate Monday, Kennealy said, "we're going to resist labels over the course of this campaign. I want to to talk about my life experience, my career, my track record, my ideas."

While Kennealy told NBC10 Boston he's "not about presidential politics right now," Democrats quickly sought to tie him to the president.

MassDems Chair Steve Kerrigan said in a statement, "The people of Massachusetts know that a vote for Mike Kennealy is a vote for Donald Trump's agenda."

Massachusetts voters over the years have elected a succession of Republican governors while preferring to keep Democrat supermajorities in the House and Senate, as well as an all-Democrat congressional delegation.

Police analyst Erin O'Brien said Kennealy will need to strike the right balance in order to be elected, not an easy thing to do in Massachusetts.

"What he's counting on is Trump voters thinking Kennealy is a lot better than Healey and that's a calculus that Trump voters will say is true, but it's not a calculus that true partisans want to make," she said.

Other Republicans mentioned as potential candidates for governor include Worcester County Sheriff Lew Evangelidis, former MBTA Chief Administrator Brian Shortsleeve, former U.S. Senate candidate John Deaton, and Sen. Peter Durant, who said last month he would make his decision "relatively shortly."

Healey in February announced her intention to seek reelection, saying she believes "there's a heck of a lot more to do."

Kennealy told NBC10 Boston, "We need a state we all can afford, we need a great future for everybody and we need government we can believe in. I think on all three of those things, Beacon Hill is failing us today."

He spent nearly two decades working in private equity before joining the public sector in 2013 as part of the leadership team that worked on turning around Lawrence Public Schools, according to his campaign.

He became an assistant secretary under Baker, and rose to the Cabinet-level role of housing and economic development secretary in December 2018. Healey, who succeeded Baker, later split that job into two separate positions of housing secretary and economic development secretary.

Kennealy stayed in that job for the remainder of Baker's tenure through 2022, helping to lead the state's response to the economic upheaval inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Following his time on Beacon Hill, Kennealy worked as senior advisor and chief strategy officer at the Boys and Girls Club of Boston.

His campaign appears poised to spotlight affordability issues, a steady theme on Beacon Hill for Healey and the House and Senate Democratic supermajorities. Kennealy named "a state we can all afford" as his top priority, followed by "a great future for everyone" and "government we can believe in."

He said he would take a much different approach than Healey on housing, saying, "We have to build a lot more housing and do it in partnership with our communities."