Carr-nac the Magnificent’s Primary Predictions

It’s time for my predictions for the primaries Tuesday in Massachusetts. Just call me Carr-nac the Magnificent:

GOP PRIMARY FOR GOVERNOR: Doughty posts a come-from-behind win over perennial also-ran Geoff Diehl. As of this morning, Diehl has $16,696.13 in his account. By contrast, Maura Healey has $5,533,022.42, Doughty has $1,074,976.82.

Diehl is absolutely petrified of Doughty, having cravenly refused debate invitations from, among other places, my show, Chs. 4, 5 and 22, WBUR/Globe, the Valley Patriot and the Norfolk Republicans. You would think Diehl would be grabbing all the free air time he could get but he’s been on the lam from the press for weeks. He’s running a Joe Biden basement campaign. Check out this photo of his big press event this week in Lowell. Can you feel the excitement?

Boston Globe: ‘It’s been strange.’ The Massachusetts primary election is unprecedented and subdued all at once.

Diehl’s next campaign appearance will be on a milk carton.

The dynamics in this race remind me of the 1990 GOP gubernatorial primary between Bill Weld and Steve Pierce, another lackluster career legislator from Westfield. Just as the prospect of Maura Healey frightens law-abiding taxpayers today, in 1990 independent voters were terrified of Democrat John Silber, whose candidacy was being propped up by the Bulgers. Weld won the primary, and then took the Corner Office over the Bulger candidate.

Like Doughty this year, Weld dumped a lot of his personal funds into the fight in the closing stretch, and it made all the difference.

(Don’t feel bad for Steve Pierce though. He’s now collecting not one, but two hack state pensions — $15,117 a month total. Geoff Diehl can only dream of such a kiss in the mail!)

Another straw in the wind: as of Thursday, 66,000 mail-in ballots had been received on the GOP side. As the Doughty campaign has been actively soliciting mail-in votes, Diehl’s sad crew has been missing in action. With a projected turnout of 300,000 on the Republican side, Doughty may go into Tuesday with an edge of 30,000 votes just on mail-in ballots alone.

Bottom line: a vote for perennial loser Diehl is a vote for Healey.

GOP PRIMARY FOR LT. GOV.: Kate Campanale, former state rep from Worcester County, should win. She’s Doughty’s running mate, and her opponent is Leah Cole Allen, also a former state rep, from Peabody/Danvers.

Worcester has become the GOP heartland of Massachusetts, and Kate is well-liked by her former colleagues in the legislature, who will turn out their voters for her (as well as, probably, for Doughty, although the GOP reps are quieter about that, not wanting to be targeted for retribution by the Diehl dead-enders.)

DEMOCRAT PRIMARY FOR SUFFOLK COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Kevin Hayden, the appointed prosecutor, prevails after the long-suppressed scandal involving his dodgy opponent, City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, was finally exposed last week by the Boston Globe.

The city of Boston appears to have dodged a major bullet with the defeat of a full-in Defund the Police candidate like Arroyo. Again, major kudos to Dorchester City Councilor Frank Baker for keeping the Arroyo-scandal story alive last weekend, despite the fact that the Democrats’ Woke-Industrial Complex was at that point still solidly behind Arroyo.

So much for Believe All Women.

DEMOCRAT PRIMARY FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL: This is a hard one to predict, but I’m guessing Andrea Campbell, the former Boston city councilor, narrowly defeats Shannon Liss-Riordan. Liss-Riordan has got the impeccable modern Massachusetts Democrat credentials – she’s a blow-in drifter (from Texas) who went to Harvard and now lives in Brookline. On the other hand, Campbell also checks multiple boxes. (Go to my book “Hitman” and check out the resumes of her father and uncle. As her campaign ads make clear, Campbell really does come from a hard-scrabble background.) Just a hunch that Campbell wins.

DEMOCRAT PRIMARY FOR AUDITOR: Another toss-up according to the polls – state Sen. Diana DiZoglio of Methuen versus Chris Dempsey, a rich-boy wannabe from, of course, the People’s Republic of Brookline. DiZoglio is kind of a loose cannon at the State House, and much of the entrenched hackerama wants her gone. But she’s tenacious, and has both money and union get-out-the-vote support. But the biggest edge DiZoglio has is that she’s from Essex County.

That’s a big deal this year because Essex County has got all kinds of Democrat primary battles, including for state rep in her hometown (please vote for Methuen city councilor Jimmy McCarty in that race). There will be a huge turnout in her backyard, maybe enough to overcome pretty boy Dempsey’s institutional support.

DEMOCRAT PRIMARY FOR LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: Not real big on the radar screen, for obvious reasons. State Sen. Eric Lesser is touting the fact that he once got a cup of coffee for Barack Obama – include me out! During the recent Panic, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll was an even more authoritarian lockdown apparatchik than failed Gov. Charlie Parker. But I think Driscoll wins, because, let’s face it, the Cult of COVID still has many devout believers among low-info (Democrat) voters. But her major advantage is that same Essex County turnout factor that benefits DiZoglio.

GOP PRIMARY FOR BARNSTABLE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Dan Higgins is the establishment candidate, backed by retiring DA Mike O’Keefe and the rest of the remaining Republican establishment on the Cape. That should be enough. By the way, he was also one of the very few Republicans to get financial support from Parker’s Super PAC.

There are more contests, but my crystal ball – the Magic 8 Ball – grows cloudy. Carr-nac is weary.

Reminder: On Monday night at 6, every candidate (in a contested fight) can get a minute of free airtime on the show to make his/her pitch. I’ll be broadcasting live from Gannon’s Tavern in Hyannis, and any candidate who’s there for my broadcast goes first in line.

Happy Labor Day weekend!