Republican Charlie Baker has taken the Massachusetts governor’s race, according to Fox News. He currently holds a very slim lead in the raw vote totals, but with almost all the votes in and mostly blue-collar suburbs and rural areas left to report, Baker seems like he’ll return the Massachusetts governorship to the Republican party — which held it for 16 years from 1990 to 2006.
Baker is a prototypical Massachusetts candidate, as Eliana noted earlier today: academic credentials, managerial competence, and social liberalism. But he’s noticeably more conservative than the alternative, of course, Martha Coakley, and will serve as a useful check on the Democratic state legislature, in all its profligacy and corruption.
The only Democrat Massachusetts voters have tolerated as governor since they elected Weld in 1990 was Deval Patrick, who was immensely popular with the Massachusetts electorate. Baker couldn’t manage a win over him in 2010, but Martha Coakley proved to be a less formidable candidate.
Michael Cowett explained for NRO what Baker’s path to victory would be, in a state with so few Republicans, a month or so ago, and it seems to reflect more or less how he did it.
UPDATE: The count is still close, and Coakley is refusing to concede and reportedly calling for a recount. ABC has also called the race for Baker.