Rayla Campbell plans to run for secretary of the commonwealth now instead of lieutenant governor.
The Republican from Randolph changed the purpose of her political committee in a letter to the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance on Thursday. Campbell had been running for lieutenant governor since March. Before that, she planned on running for Congress once again in the Seventh Congressional District against U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Dorchester).
“I’ll be taking on Democrat incumbent William Galvin for the Secretary of State in 2022!” Campbell posted on Facebook on Thursday night. “I’m dedicated to the integrity of government and the protection ALL consumers. That is my mission. From oversight on elections and corporations to securities regulation, I will be there to serve you the people of Massachusetts, and none other. Please join the revolution, today!”
Campbell is no fan of Bill Galvin, a Democrat. She has said she feels as though she was held to an unfair standard when she ran for Congress last year compared to other candidates. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the signature-gathering requirement for candidates was cut in half by the state’s highest court. In the case of a U.S. House candidate, that meant that they needed 1,000 signatures to make it onto the primary ballot.
Campbell, who announced her run for Congress in April 2020 after considering running for state representative, came up short in her signature-collecting effort and shifted her focus to running a write-in/sticker campaign to get onto the November 2020 ballot. To get a party’s nomination as a write-in candidate in a typical election year, the candidate needs at least the same number of votes in the primary election as the number of signatures required to make it onto the primary ballot. However, while the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office reduced the signature requirement to make it onto the primary ballot, it did not reduce the vote requirement for a write-in/sticker campaign candidate to make the ballot, citing its interpretation of the court ruling.
Campbell got 1,202 certified write-in votes — less than the 2,000 ordinarily needed, but more than the 1,000 signatures needed to make in onto the primary ballot last year — and was denied a spot on the ballot.
(Campbell and the Massachusetts Republican Party dispute the vote count, questioning whether the city of Boston counted all of the write-in votes for her — just as the city failed to count all of the write-in votes in the party’s Second Suffolk District state committeewoman race in the March 2020 presidential primary election. The city didn’t properly count all of the votes until late March 2021, more than one year later.)
Campbell is a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump. She is pro-life, supports the police, favors voter ID, and opposes both mask and vaccination mandates.
Campbell is the only Republican running for Secretary of the Commonwealth thus far. Additionally, she was the only declared Republican candidate for lieutenant governor before making the switch. Incumbent Karyn Polito may seek a third term if Governor Charlie Baker runs for re-election, and Agawam city councilor Cecilia Calabrese has privately expressed interest in the position, but has not publicly commented on the matter yet.
Galvin has not said whether or not he plans to seek a third term, though he said in 2018 he didn’t plan to run again. That year he won re-election with 68.2 percent of the vote.
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