Will Charlie Baker run for office again? NCAA president says he won’t ‘rule anything out.’
By Samantha J. Gross, Boston Globe
Is Charlie Baker considering rebooting his political career?
When asked the question at an event in Boston Thursday morning, the two-term former governor demurred but left the possibility open.
“I never rule anything out,” Baker said while speaking at the UMass Club about his work at the NCAA, according to State House News Service. “But I think we live in really challenging times, and it’s important [for] really good people to step up.”
Since March 2023, Baker has served as the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the governing body for a multibillion-dollar industry with more than a half-million student-athletes.
Baker, who chose not to run for a third term, said at the time that he did not seek out the NCAA top job and was instead approached about the opening.
The Swampscott Republican left office in 2023 as the most well-liked Massachusetts governor in recorded history. In one long-running national poll, Baker has been America’s most popular governor 15 times. While Baker has repeatedly said he has no interest in running for federal office, in an interview the week before his last day as governor he told the Globe he would “never say never” to another try at elected office.
He struck the same tone Thursday.
“If someone said to me, ‘No, you’re going to be president of the NCAA,’ I would have said, ‘Yeah right,’” he said. “So, I never rule anything out.”
Baker did not, however, entertain questions about who he was voting for in the upcoming presidential election.
“I’m not here to talk about that,” Baker said to a crowd of about 10 reporters.
Baker declined to publicly endorse a candidate for president in both 2016 and 2020. In 2020, he did not vote for then-President Donald Trump or Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden when he cast his ballot, leaving the options blank as he did in 2016 when the choices were Trump or Hillary Clinton.