Why is Mitt Romney so unpopular in his home state of Massachusetts?

[WilliamPitt]

19. It's like this

1. Statewide, in national elections. Massachusetts votes Democratic. I can't remember the last Republican who carried the state in a presidential election. I think Reagan in 1984, someone can check me on that.

BUT

2. Before Deval Patrick, we had 16 years of GOP governors, including Mitt. Two reasons for this: a) The Dem bench was pretty light on good statewide candidates, but more importantly b) Everyone in MA re-elects their own state Reps and Senators even if they are crooked bastards, and hates the other Reps/Senators from other districts for being crooked bastards...so when a Dem Rep/Senator runs for governor, most of the state already doesn't like them. The State House is not filled with popular people (except in their own districts), so they have not fared well in statewide races. That left an opening for the GOP to run moderate Republicans and win; for a time, in the late 8os and 90s, the GOP looked at MA as an incubator for creating nationally palatable GOP presidential candidates: Republican, but moderate enough to appeal to independents and some Democrats. Mitt was, and remains, one of those experiments.

As to your specific question, Mitt was also a pretty lackluster governor. But he's getting killed in this election because MA votes Democratic in presidential elections.