These governors won over unlikely voters and have some lessons for Washington

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is applauded after signing a bill requiring comparable pay for men and women in August 2016.
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is applauded after signing a bill requiring comparable pay for men and women in August 2016.

(Massachusetts' Republican governor, Charlie Baker, signed a bill requiring comparable pay for men and women in 2016. He has been praised by Republicans and Democrats for his bipartisanship.Elise Amendola/AP)

The most popular governor in America is a Republican who leads a heavily Democratic state. Not far behind is a Democratic governor of a state that Donald Trump swept last November.

National politics may be more polarized than ever, but in Massachusetts and Montana, pragmatic politicians are winning voters from the other side and, with some success, practicing consensus politics.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, both combine progressive social policies with a commitment to fiscal discipline. To them, governing is about getting things done and pleasing as many people as possible along the way.

More than a third of American voters identify as moderates. Forty-three percent are registered Independents or unaffiliated with a political party. In gubernatorial contests, partisan labels are often secondary considerations.

And these two governors are a sign that effective, bipartisan governing may not be entirely elusive in this fractured time.

A mix of compassion and 'Yankee thriftiness'

During a televised 2014 gubernatorial debate, Baker and his Democratic opponent were asked an unusual question: When was the last time they had cried?

Baker had a ready response: a conversation with a fisherman who had prevented his two sons from going to college, and "ruined their lives," in order to carry on the struggling family business. Baker said he was brought to tears during a recent retelling of their encounter.

"You hear those kinds of stories every day," Baker said, pausing as he became emotional. "And it's a big part of why people like you and me get into public service, because we want to help people like that."

The governor, a former CEO and Massachusetts Health and Human Services secretary, has not always struck the winning balance between his fiscal conservatism and a compassion that's appealed across party lines. After his unsuccessful first bid for governor in 2010, Baker conducted an informal post-loss investigation and learned that many voters saw him as aggressive and unfeeling — qualities he says aren't characteristic of him.

"I can't tell you how many people I talked to afterwards who knew me pretty well, who'd worked with me in other forums and other places who said, 'That guy, that guy who ran that race, that guy on TV, that guy in the media — that's not the guy I know,'" Baker told an audience at the John F. Kennedy Library in April 2015.