With the election just days away, Massachusetts voters will very soon go to the polls to select their next governor. While there is much to consider when selecting a state’s leader, an examination of the facts shows that the best choice for our state is our current Attorney General, Martha Coakley.

Why select Coakley over her main opponent, Charlie Baker? There are a myriad of reasons.

First of all should be Baker’s lack of understanding of the broader national issues that impact our state. In July, when asked about the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, where the Court ruled that businesseses can deny insurance coverage for birth control if the business owners have a religious objection, Baker responded that “It doesn’t matter.”

It matters, though, for several reasons. Primarily, of course, is that it is a horridly backwards ruling by five old men who have no stake in what happens to a woman’s body.

Yet the ruling does impact Massachusetts, despite how Baker has tried to frame that response, because our state’s own mandate would likely be struck down if challenged. Baker either does not understand how the courts work or does not care about protecting the rights of women—who are citizens—over the rights of businesses—who are not—and either of those possibilities is a scary prospect for a governor.

The second case concerns our state’s failing infrastructure. While Baker and Coakley both have articulated the need to repair failing roads and bridges—like the I-91 Viaduct that runs through Springfield—Baker opposes the gas tax increase that Coakley supports.

While no one likes taxes, they are a necessary part of funding necessary projects, and funding the desperately needed repairs to our state’s infrastructure is an act of fiscal responsibility. Baker’s claim of support for the repairs without supporting a method of funding the project is doubletalk.

Coakley is honest about her admittedly unpopular position, and willing to take the risk to do what is right and needed for our state.

The final, and strongest, charge against Baker, is his connection to the national Republican Party. Apart from the millions of dollars the Republican Governor’s Association has donated to Baker—money that he would be expected to answer for if elected—there is the unfolding scandal of his donation to New Jersey’s Republican State Committee and the state’s subsequent awarding of a business contract to a company Baker ran at the time.

New Jersey Governor Christie is refusing to release any documents pertaining to questions about this apparent impropriety until after the election, and Baker has refused comment. The lack of transparency should set off alarms.

Coakley’s strong positions are also the right ones. As Attorney General, she filed a brief in support of marriage equality in the Windsor case; she supports access to birth control for all women; she supports and has a plan to fund universal pre-K for all our state’s children.

She is willing and able to fight for what is right, and will not back down from that fight. We need a strong governor like the one Martha Coakley will be if we elect her on November 4.