Minogue’s finance chair Jennifer Nassour backs elimination of GOP primaries
“a clear anti-Republican message coming out of the Minogue campaign”
Amid “No Kings” imagery Jennifer Nassour, the Finance Chair for GOP gubernatorial hopeful Mike Minogue, joined activists on the State House steps today supporting a ballot question to eliminate state primaries in favor of all party preliminary elections, a move some voices have said would be the end of the GOP in Massachusetts.
A so-called “jungle primary” would apply to all statewide races, including US Senate, congress and each state senate and state representative seat and allow Democrats, Republicans and unenrolled voters to all vote in a singular preliminary election.
A similar system exists in many municipal races, including Boston, where Nassour ran for City Council in 2019.
Just last week Minogue told WBUR: “I don’t identify with a party. I didn’t swear an oath to the Constitution at West Point to a party. I swore the Constitution to America. And so I am very focused on the things around Massachusetts, and what I just talked about as my positions.”
Nassour, when asked why this was not the end of the Massachusetts GOP said, “I’m not here to speak on behalf of Mike Minogue…I don’t think that its the end of the Republican Party, I think that actually this is part of the beginning of a new Republican Party in Massachusetts.”
Nassour’s support for the all party preliminary prompted a fierce response from the campaign of Brian Shortsleeve.
Holly Robichaud, Campaign Strategist for Shortsleeve said:
“There is a clear anti-Republican message coming out of the Minogue campaign. It is disappointing that Team Minogue endorse institutionalize one party rule in Massachusetts.”
In comments published in the Herald, Mike Kennealy’s Campaign Communications Director Logan Trupiano, took issue with Minogue’s “I don’t identify with a party” quote.
“Minogue’s comments are deeply concerning, especially given that he only recently registered as a Republican and has consistently kept the party and its supporters at arm’s length. Mike Kennealy has spent years strengthening our party — first as the MassGOP’s finance chair and chair of its Legislative Support Fund, and now as a candidate for Governor. Kennealy was also the single largest donor to Republicans in the 2024 election cycle,” Trupiano said.
Trupiano confirmed that “Mike Kennealy does not support this initiative.”
Danielle Allen of Coalition for Healthy Democracy said organizers had collected over 80,000 signatures to advance to the next step in the ballot initiate process. Allen indicated that the Coalition aimed to raise millions in 2026. In 2024 the Coalition raised $80,000 with $45,000 coming from the Blue Haven Initiative LLC managed by Liesel Pritzker Simmons of the well known and wealthy Pritzker family.
When Minogue announced Nassour as Finance Co-Chair in October the campaign praised her “as a powerhouse in Massachusetts politics…[who] doubled their ranks in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.”