Massachusetts Democrats are making their playbook for countering Republican candidates for governor clear — try at every opportunity to convince voters that the conservative contenders are an inroad for President Donald Trump’s policies to arrive in the Bay State.

But Gov. Maura Healey, a first-term Democrat from Arlington who is seeking reelection, is not the one manning the messaging, at least for now.

Instead, Healey’s campaign referred the Herald to a statement from the Massachusetts Democratic Party when asked for reaction to Mike Kennealy, a former housing and economic development cabinet secretary under Gov. Charlie Baker, launching a Republican bid for governor this past week.

“Thanks for reaching out. We can refer you to the MassDems statement on this issue,” a spokesperson for the firm that handles Healey’s campaign communications said.

Top brass at MassDems wasted no time in slamming Kennealy in their opening statement — Chair Steve Kerrigan immediately linked him to Trump — and in subsequent emails to supporters

In one email blast Thursday afternoon, the Massachusetts Democratic Party asked followers to sign a petition telling Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll that “we’re ready to stand up against MAGA Mike’s agenda and re-elect Team Healey/Driscoll.”

“We reject the toxic Trump/Musk agenda and everything it stands for. We reject its hatred and division. We reject its prioritizing of billionaire oligarchs over the American people,” the email said. “But MAGA Mike Kennealy thinks this destructive ideology is what’s best for the Bay State. He wants to govern our state with the same recklessness and disregard for everyday folks that has been so typical of this second Trump administration.”

Rob Gray, a veteran political strategist who worked on campaigns for former Gov. Charlie Baker and Mitt Romney, told the Herald that it will be hard to attack candidates who were part of the Baker administration as “Trump robots.”

“But given Trump’s popularity in Massachusetts, I certainly expect the Democrats to try. And, they’d rather do that than defend the Healey record on spending and taxes,” he said. “Will it stick? I doubt it. But I mean, right now, if you look at the history of midterm elections and the history of Trump’s numbers in Massachusetts, it’s a pretty decent bet that Trump will be an anchor for Republican candidates here.”

As for Healey herself, so far, the messaging is only about her time in office.

When asked about Kennealy this past week, Healey said she looks “forward to making my case over the course of a campaign about the record of the last two years, which has been a record about delivering results, cutting taxes and lowering costs for people, building more housing, investing in infrastructure, working to fix a broken transportation system.”

“One of the reasons I want to run for re-election is because we have done a lot, and there is so much more left to do, and I want to continue to be able to do that, day in and day out, because I see what’s possible in the state,” she said.

House Speaker Ron Mariano reflects on Milton’s designation as an MBTA community…

House Speaker Ron Mariano thinks the courts got it wrong on Milton’s battle to exclude itself from a controversial, transit-oriented housing law.

The MBTA Communities Act, which former Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law in 2021, has set off a firestorm in Massachusetts among local cities and towns who are grappling with whether to comply with a law that requires them to zone at least one district near a transit hub for multi-family housing.

Milton, which has the Mattapan Trolley, decided to buck the law, a decision that ultimately found its way to the state’s highest court where a judge ruled that cities and towns cannot opt themselves out of the zoning statute.

But for some local officials from the town, the Mattapan Trolley should not have fallen under the “rapid transit” classification in the law that then required them to zone for multi-family housing near a transit hub.

Mariano apparently agrees with that assessment.

During an appearance at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce this past week, the Quincy Democrat said he thought Milton “had a legitimate complaint being included in the coverage of the bill as an MBTA community.”

“All they got is this crazy little trolley car. They don’t have a train. They don’t have bus access,” he later told reporters. “But then, once they stood up, and before the court thing was decided, you had all these other towns come out of the woodwork, and you got to see what they put in to be covered by the mandate.”

Gov. Maura Healey and Attorney General Andrea Campbell have aggressively gone after any city or town that has voted not to comply with the law, including by withholding grant dollars and filing court actions.

Mariano is not a judge by any means — something he acknowledged several times this past week — but his comments show that some Democrats on Beacon Hill are still considering what constitutes a rapid transit community.

Even with Mariano’s admission, he told reporters that he is not planning to bring forward legislation that would carve out Milton, or any other municipality, from the MBTA Communities Act.

He also said that cities and towns should comply.

“I think that we need these cities and towns to make a commitment because if they don’t, if they continue to try and exploit any loophole that they can find, we will never hit our target (housing) rate,” he said.