If 2018 was a Clinton midterm, does Charlie Baker sweep every town in MA-GOV?

[Figueira]

No, I doubt he would even do that much better. Gonzalez did as well as he did not because of Trump.

[Figueira]

No, the residual Democratic brand is too strong in western MA. He'd do better everywhere, but he would still lose a few towns. My guess is he comes close to but falls short of actually flipping Boston.

He literally came very close to winning Boston with Trump as president (getting 49% of the vote there). He is winning the city if Clinton was president.

So you know the answer, yet you still asked the question.

Boston is far from the most Democratic municipality in MA. There are multiple places in the Boston area and elsewhere that are more Democratic.

[Figueira]

No, I doubt he would even do that much better. Gonzalez did as well as he did not because of Trump.

I think Baker would have hit 70% if this was a Clinton midterm. I'm sure there were some Democrats who approved of Baker but couldn't vote for someone from the same party as Trump.

In reality he got 66.6%, so hitting 70% would not be that much better in the grand scheme of things.

Any Democrat who approves of Baker but didn't vote for him probably isn't voting for any Republican anyway. The only improvement Baker would have made if it was a Clinton midterm would be due to the enthusiasm gap being reversed. And that wouldn't have been nearly enough to win Cambridge, Somerville, Amherst, Northampton, Leverett, Wendell, Great Barrington, etc.