Will Ron Beaty still run for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts?
Yes he will, he recently told NewBostonPost.
The former Barnstable County Commissioner expressed his interest in the position back in December 2020, and that interest is still there.
Beaty has not yet filed with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance to make the run, but he plans to do so at some point in the future.
“I am a 2022 Republican candidate for Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor,” he wrote in an email message on Sunday, March 21. “I will provide additional information and details at a later date.”
Beaty also announced his forthcoming run publicly on social media on Monday morning.
“In response to several recent inquiries, ‘yes,’ I am presently a 2022 Republican candidate for Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor,” Beaty wrote on Twitter. “I will provide additional information and further details at a later date. Thank you.”
Beaty identifies with the conservative faction of the Republican Party and is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump.
It would not be Beaty’s first time running for office. He has plenty of experience running for office, as NewBostonPost previously noted.
In addition to running for county commissioner in 2016 and 2020, Beaty has run for state representative twice. The first time came in the Second Barnstable District’s Democratic primary back in 1990. The next time came in 2018 when he primaried now-former state representative Randy Hunt (R-Sandwich) in the Fifth Barnstable District. Hunt got 79.3 percent of the vote and Beaty got 20.6.
Additionally, Beaty was the Republican nominee for the Massachusetts Senate in the Cape and Islands district in 2014 and got 37.1 percent of the vote in the general election. He ran for GOP state committeeman in the same district in March 2016 and came in second in a three-way race. He got 24 percent of the vote, while the winner, Fran Manzelli, got 59.2 percent.
If Beaty files with the state to run in 2022, he will not be the first Republican to do so. Rayla Campbell, a conservative Randolph resident, who ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in the state’s Seventh Congressional District as a write-in candidate against U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Dorchester) filed with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance on Thursday, March 18 to run.
No Democrats have announced bids for lieutenant governor as of Tuesday morning.
On the Republican side it’s unclear if incumbent Karyn Polito will seek a third term in the position. It is widely expected that if the state’s Republican governor, Charlie Baker, chooses not to seek a third term, then Polito will run for governor. If Baker runs again, however, Polito is expected to seek another term as lieutenant governor.
