This is an excerpt from WBUR's daily morning newsletter, WBUR Today. We are republishing it in partnership with the New England News Collaborative.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has no interest in getting into a war of words with former U.S. senator and New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate Kelly Ayotte over her anti-Bay State rhetoric. But the same can’t be said for every Massachusetts official.
“It’s kind of sad that she would do something like that,” Lowell City Manager Tom Golden told WBUR’s Dave Faneuf, calling Ayotte’s recent comments targeting his community “cheap” and “childish.”
Here’s the backstory: Ayotte, a Republican, served in the U.S. Senate from 2011 to 2017 and is one of several candidates who have jumped into the 2024 race to replace outgoing New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.In the past week, she has warned (repeatedly) the Granite State is “one election away” from becoming Massachusetts (which, according to her, is a bad thing).
Ayotte dialed in during a Fox News interview, singling out Lowell and Lawrence as the source of her state’s fentanyl problems.
“It’s killing our citizens,” said Ayotte, who subsequently took aim at WBZ’s Jon Keller yesterday for pushing back on her strategy.
Golden, a former longtime Democratic state representative, is pushing back, too. He argued that Ayotte’s time in the Senate did not result in any solutions “that actually made a difference” addressing the fentanyl crisis.
He added New Hampshire spends less on substance abuse and mental health services than other states and suggested Ayotte focus on changing that if she becomes governor.
“But I think it starts with an apology,” Golden said.
Meanwhile in Lawrence: City Council President Marc Laplante has extended an invite to Ayotte to witness the city’s drug enforcement efforts and “improve the cooperative relationship between our governments,” according to The Eagle-Tribune.
It’s not the first time a Republican has pointed the finger at the two Merrimack Valley cities for the growing fentanyl crisis in New Hampshire.
Sununu, former Maine Gov. Paul LePage and former President Donald Trump all did the same thing in 2016 and 2017. (At the time, former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said illegal drugs take “a lot of different paths” through the country and called for working “together as a community to deal with this.”)
