Where Does Western MA Begin? Shrewsbury, Gubernatorial Campaign Says

SHREWSBURY, MA — The age-old, viral question about where western Massachusetts begins will hit the campaign trail this weekend.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl, a former Plymouth-area state representative, and lieutenant governor candidate Leah Allen, an Essex County resident, will embark Saturday on a "Take Freedom Back" tour across the mountains and farms of western Massachusetts.

Except, the tour starts at the White City shopping plaza along Route 9 in Shrewsbury, which the Diehl campaign says in its ads is in Worcester (it's not). The tour then zags over to West Springfield and Northampton (OK, we'll give you those two) before zagging back to Fitchburg, which is also not in western Massachusetts.

It's possible the Diehl campaign just needed an easy way to split the state in two. The "Take Freedom Back" tour will hit eastern Massachusetts on Sunday, stopping in Taunton, Dedham, Sandwich, Plymouth, Lawrence and Tyngsborough.

The Diehl campaign did not respond to a request asking where western Massachusetts begins. Healey's campaign also did not respond to the same question.

The geographic misappropriation likely won't be a fatal error for Diehl, who's far behind Democrat Maura Healey in recent polls. But it's another setback for a part of the state that has worked hard to forge its identity as central Massachusetts. And hey, it's possible people living west of the Quabbin Reservoir don't want to be associated with the residents of Leominster and Grafton.

The question of where western Massachusetts begins seems to be especially tough for people who live east of Route 128. In one of his quirky man-on-the-street pieces, WBZ's Matt Shearer posed the western Mass question to Boston denizens in September. He got some really weird answers — one guy said "Cape Cod" — but many people also thought it was Worcester.

This also wouldn't be the first time central Massachusetts has confused outside politicians.

In 2020, a union supporting former Congressman Joe Kennedy's primary run against U.S. Sen. Ed Markey ran an ad in the Worcester Telegram that spelled the city's name as "Worchester." That same year, the Kennedy campaign emailed supporters criticizing Markey for ignoring the towns Dana, Enfield and Prescott. Those former towns have been deep below the Quabbin Reservoir since the 1940s.

In 2019, the Mass Majority PAC — whose biggest donors are Boston-area types like Wayfair chairman Steven Conine and car dealership overlord Daniel Quirk — spent thousands on a mailer supporting At-Large Councilor Donna Colorio with the same "Worchester" misspelling.

Diehl and Allen's campaign has been backed by former president Donald Trump. The GOP duo will face off against Healy and lieutenant governor candidate Kim Driscoll, the mayor of Salem, on Nov. 8.