Charlie Baker Still Doesn't Want to Vote for Donald Trump

BOSTON, MA — Half an hour after disembarking a plane from vacation, Gov. Charlie Baker spoke to the press about the East Boston police shooting and about a charming moment he shared with his wife at a historic Dublin bar. And then, of course, Baker was asked about Donald Trump.

You get the distinct sense Baker left the country to get away from that kind of talk.

"There's a reason why I said I wasn't going to vote for either of them," Baker responded. "And let me start by saying I said I wouldn't support Donald Trump a long time ago."

That's true. He, along with former Massachusetts governor and Republican nominee Mitt Romney, were party trailblazers in their early opposition.

Baker refused to support then-primary candidate Trump back in March, after a Super Tuesday sweep that included Massachusetts. He later reiterated that opposition after Trump effectively achieved the Republican nomination. Patch even wrote a little story about it entitled, "Stop Asking Charlie Baker about Donald Trump."

But lately, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has taken issue with the fact that Baker, while on vacation, did not explicitly and overtly condemn Trump over recently released audio about grabbing attractive women's genitals or forcibly kissing them.

“Governor Baker has said many times that Donald Trump is unfit to be president, and he believes that these disgusting comments toward women are more evidence of that," the governor's office said in a statement to Politico, in response. "The Governor will not be voting for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton for president. Governor Baker has never supported Donald Trump, and did not support him to be the presidential nominee in the first place.”

There's also been criticism for that second statement Baker has stuck by: that he will not be voting for either major party presidential candidate.

He answered reporters on that count Thursday.

Trump is temperamentally unfit to hold presidential office, Baker said again. As for Clinton, Baker said he still feels she has "believability problems." That's why he's focused his energies on state ballot questions and local races, Baker said.

"And I said I was extremely disappointed that the two major party candidates are not people I could see supporting, myself. ... But the American people have already started to vote, and I hope they will take all the information available to them into consideration when they make their decision," he said.

Photo by Suffolk University Law School