
Charlie Baker, the Republican governor of Massachusetts, said he will not support President Trump’s reelection bid, his communications director Lizzy Guyton told CNN affiliate WCVB in an email Wednesday.
“The governor cannot support Donald Trump for president and is focused on seeing Massachusetts through the pandemic,” Guyton writes in the email. “He’ll leave the election analysis to the pundits.”
At a news conference earlier on Wednesday, the governor said he would "take a pass" when asked who he was supporting for President. Baker’s office later clarified to say he was taking a pass on the question, not on voting in this year’s election, according to WCVB.
Baker has publicly sparred with Trump in the past, slamming the President’s "bitterness, combativeness and self-interest" in the wake of nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd, and characterizing Trump’s refusal to accept a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election as “appalling and outrageous.”
CNN has reached out to Baker’s office for further comment.