Healey's Disclosure Form Lists No Spouse. Her Partner Runs a Nonprofit That Raised $33 Million in 2024. The Last Days of the Governor's Race Are About the Space Between Those Facts

In the final days before Tuesday's election, Republican nominee Mike Minogue's campaign has made an issue of a question the state's ethics disclosure law does not ask: what Gov. Maura Healey's unmarried partner, Joanna Lydgate, earns and who funds the organization she runs.

Healey and her office refer to Lydgate as Massachusetts' first lady. On her annual Statement of Financial Interests, however, Healey answers "none" when asked about immediate family members in her household, according to the Boston Herald's reporting as summarized by Mass Daily News. The New Boston Post, reviewing Healey's 17-page 2025 statement filed May 15, reported that it says she had no spouse or dependent children living with her in 2025, and that she gave the same answer, "Filer reported none," to questions about a spouse's employment, nonprofit leadership and real estate.

That answer tracks the law. The state's disclosure statute defines "immediate family" as "a spouse and any dependent children residing in the reporting person's household," according to both outlets. Healey's officials told the Herald she does not have to list Lydgate's assets because the two are not married. Nothing in the reporting suggests the form was filed incorrectly.

Minogue's campaign reads the definition as a gap rather than a defense. Healey "claims to have a family to the press and public, yet denies she has a family for purposes of disclosure," a Minogue campaign document says, according to the Herald as quoted by Mass Daily News. The campaign contrasted that with Minogue's own filing with the State Ethics Commission, which it said runs 267 pages and includes his wife's and children's finances. "Mike Minogue and Renee and even their children opened the books. Will Governor Healey's First Lady do the same?" the campaign asked, as reported by the Herald's Joe Battenfeld.

The campaign stopped short of saying Healey broke any law, Mass Daily News reported, and the reporting cited here does not include evidence that Lydgate has benefited from Healey's office.

Healey's campaign rejected the attack. Spokesperson Kerry Lyons called it "baseless lies from a candidate growing more unhinged as his campaign fails," according to the Herald. She described Lydgate as "an accomplished CEO who built States United from the ground up" and said it was "despicable" for Minogue to "smear that important work," Mass Daily News reported.

Lydgate is chief executive of the States United Democracy Center, a Washington-based nonprofit that works with state election officials and law enforcement and describes itself as nonpartisan. She co-founded it in 2020 after serving as Healey's chief deputy in the attorney general's office, the Boston Globe has reported.

The group's donations and grants grew from about $5 million in 2021 to $14.5 million in 2022, $17.4 million in 2023 and $33 million in 2024, according to the New Boston Post's review of its federal returns. Healey was sworn in as governor in January 2023. Donations and grants made up more than 99 percent of the organization's revenue in 2024, the Post reported.

The 2024 return reported paying Lydgate $413,941 in base pay and a $3,500 bonus; with retirement contributions and nontaxable benefits, her total compensation was $461,512, according to the Post. The Globe has reported her salary as roughly $417,000. Lydgate also leads States United Action, a related 501(c)(4) group that took in about $5.05 million in donations and grants in 2024.

Federal rules generally allow both 501(c)(3) charities and 501(c)(4) social welfare groups to keep donors' names and addresses out of their public filings, the Post noted. Some donors are public through their own filings: Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation, part of a group founded by Melinda French Gates, gave the Democracy Center $7 million in 2024 through two general support grants, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation gave a $300,000 general support grant, according to the Post. The rest of the donor list is not public.

The awkwardness is partly about a title. Early in the administration the governor's office called Lydgate the "first partner," the Herald noted, while a 2024 press release was headlined "Governor Healey and First Lady Lydgate Welcome First Lady of Ukraine." The title has no legal meaning in Massachusetts. Lydgate told the Globe in an Oct. 25 profile that her role at States United is nonpartisan and that she strives to keep it that way.

The New Boston Post also reported that Healey lists no Massachusetts real estate, lives in an Arlington house that Lydgate owns, and accepts a $65,000-per-year housing stipend. The stipend is available to the governor by law; the Post's report does not allege that accepting it is improper.

What it does and does not establish

The record shows a disclosure form that matches the statute's definition, a partner with a large nonprofit salary, and donors who are mostly anonymous by law. It does not show any donor's interest in Massachusetts state business, which is the question Minogue's campaign is asking voters to consider and which neither campaign has answered with documents.

Changing what officials must disclose about unmarried partners would require the Legislature to amend the ethics law. Neither candidate has filed or described such a proposal in the reporting cited. Polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday.