Maura Healey.Photo: Chris Christo/The Boston Herald via AP

Gubernatorial candidate and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey addresses the audience at a watch party, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022, in Boston. Healey won the Democratic primary for Massachusetts governor, bringing her one step closer to becoming the first openly gay candidate and first woman elected to the state’s top political office.

Massachusetts’s attorney general could turn her state’s top seat blue in November — and make history in the process.

Maura Healeyis heavily favored to win the race for governor of Massachusetts this fall. If she does, she’ll become the state’s first female governor and will be among the first out lesbian governors in the country.

CNN reports that 51-year-oldHealey won more than 85% of the votein the Democratic primary Tuesday — for which she had just one opponent, who remained on the ballot despite dropping out of the race in June.

Massachusetts' current governor, Charlie Baker, is a Republican, but much more moderate than most of the party base,having supported abortion rightsand theimpeachmentof former PresidentDonald Trump.

Baker announced in December that hewould not be running for reelection, paving the way for Healey to face Diehl come November.

In a Dec. 2020 interview withVanity Fair, Healey touched on the more-than 100 suits state attorneys general filed against the Trump administration, saying, “I don’t think you can overstate how much energy and effort it took to hold the line against the Trump administration that was doing things so entirely unprecedented and in violation of so many norms and the rule of law.”

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer.

She continued: “What a sad commentary that in order to defend the Constitution, to protect the rule of law, we found ourselves taking Donald Trump and his administration to court over 100 times, but it was absolutely necessary.”

“The good news is we won over 80% of those cases … The numbers are staggering, but when you have a president looking to gut health care or roll back environmental protections or reverse years of progress and reproductive freedom, that’s why it’s been really important for us to be active,” she toldVanity Fair. “I’m fortunate that as a state attorney general, I was able to do something.”

source: people.com