Pandemic takes a political toll on Massachusetts governor

BOSTON (AP) — Early last March, when the COVID-19 crisis still felt like a remote threat, Charlie Baker flew off with members of his family to a ski vacation in Utah.

It would be the last taste of normalcy the Republican governor would enjoy for the next year.

Three days later, on March 9, 2020, Baker cut his vacation short and returned as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts shot up to the then-startling number of 41. Baker and the state that twice elected him governor were about to be tested in ways unimaginable just weeks earlier.

For Baker, the pandemic has had a kind of inverse impact on his popularity in Massachusetts, one of the hardest-hit states with a confirmed death toll approaching 17,000.

When fear was running high in the early months of the crisis and Baker was taking dramatic steps to shut down the state, the public’s confidence in him remained high — only to fall as vaccines arrived and Baker stumbled with a botched vaccination website rollout and efforts to more fully reopen businesses like restaurants even as new variants of the virus lurked.

Other governors who were hailed early on the COVID-19 crisis — including California's Gavin Newsom and New York's Andrew Cuomo, both Democrats — have also seen their stars dimmed as critics questioned some of their pandemic-related decisions.

As cases shot up, Baker began holding daily press conferences to unveil a dizzying series of orders meant to limit the spread of the virus. He shuttered schools, closed nonessential businesses, set curfews, issued mask mandates, delayed elective surgeries and ordered the construction of field hospitals.

Initially, Baker’s frank approach to delivering even the most unsettling news won plaudits.

Baker would later say that as governor, he'd...