Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the young liberal icon from New York, has endorsed Sen. Ed Markey’s (D-MA) reelection bid next year, as Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) considers challenging Markey for what promises to be the nation’s most competitive congressional primary, the Boston Globe reports.
Ocasio-Cortez and Markey have worked together as the primary sponsors of the Green New Deal, the signature legislative issue for both lawmakers.
“Buoyed by youth and a dynastic name, Representative Joseph Kennedy would hold an immediate edge over Sen. Edward Markey should the 38-year-old congressman launch a primary challenge to the seasoned incumbent,” according to a new Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll.
“Kennedy would lead a five-person field by 9 percentage points, 35% to Markey’s 26%.
“And in a head-to-head matchup, Kennedy’s advantage would grow even larger: 14 percentage points — 42% to 28%. He would best Markey in every age group and across wide geographic swaths of the state.”
Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) sounded like a U.S. Senate candidate in an interview with CBS Boston, especially when “pressed to expand on the systemic change he has said he could bring to Washington.”
“In our interview, he endorsed several controversial ideas that have been floated in recent months – abolishing the electoral college system that can and does award the presidency to the popular vote loser, installing term limits on Supreme Court judges, and doing away with the Senate filibuster, a tactic often used to block bills that have majority support.”
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A new Change Research poll in Massachusetts finds Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) leading Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) in a possible Democratic U.S. Senate primary, 42% to 25%.
Businessman Steve Pemberton earned 7% and attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan got 5%.
“I hear the folks who say I should wait my turn, but with due respect — I’m not sure this is a moment for waiting.”
— Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA), quoted by the Boston Globe, on a possible U.S. Senate primary against Se. Ed Markey (D-MA).
Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) confirmed in a Facebook post that he’s considering a bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts.
Said Kennedy: “Over the past few weeks I’ve begun to consider a run for the U.S. Senate. This isn’t a decision I’m approaching lightly and — to be completely candid — I wasn’t expecting to share my thoughts so soon.”
Rep. Joseph Kennedy III (D-MA) is considering a primary challenge next year against Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA), the New York Times reports.
“Such a race could substantially alter the state’s political landscape and has the potential to elevate a fourth member of a Democratic dynasty to the Senate.”
“A contest between the two Massachusetts lawmakers could become the nation’s most high-profile primary race and would represent another test of the Democratic Party’s old guard. And while Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Markey are both committed progressives, the race would amount to a generational showdown between a scion of the state’s most famous family and a more than four-decade-long fixture of Massachusetts politics.”
Politico: “Recent polling shows Markey’s support among Massachusetts Democratic and unenrolled voters is a little shakier than he would like… The senator’s favorability rating is an anemic 38 percent, with 25 percent of voters expressing an unfavorable view of him. More than a third of voters are either undecided (22 percent) or have never heard of him (14 percent), a bad omen for a pol who’s been in Congress for more than 40 years. …
“Markey isn’t the only incumbent in the state’s all-Democratic delegation looking over his shoulder. The well of pent-up progressive talent is also generating a handful of House primary challenges, including to longtime Reps. Richard Neal and Stephen Lynch, and four-term Rep. Joe Kennedy III.”
A new UMass Lowell/Boston Globe poll in Massachusetts finds Gov. Charlie Baker (R) leading Jay Gonzalez (D) by a stunning 39 points among likely voters, 66% to 27%.
In the U.S. Senate race, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) leads her Geoff Diehl (R), 56% to 31%.
A new Suffolk University poll in Massachusetts finds Gov. Charlie Baker (R) with a 27-point lead over challenger Jay Gonzalez (D), 55% to 28%.
In the U.S. Senate race, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) holds an even larger gap over her challenger, Geoff Diehl (R), 54% to 24%.
Said pollster David Paleologos: “What is fascinating about this poll is that Baker’s and Warren’s path to dominating their races are so different. Warren is using the traditional path of being popular within her party and getting just enough independents, whereas Baker has even numbers across every category, even the opposing party. One is a partisan, and one is a moderate, and they end up at the same spot.”
“In the most exhaustive review undertaken of Elizabeth Warren’s professional history, the Boston Globe found clear evidence, in documents and interviews, that her claim to Native American ethnicity was never considered by the Harvard Law faculty, which voted resoundingly to hire her, or by those who hired her to four prior positions at other law schools. At every step of her remarkable rise in the legal profession, the people responsible for hiring her saw her as a white woman.”
“If you have an ‘R’ next to your name and you open your mouth, you’re hated. If you’re a Democrat, like Elizabeth Warren, you can say anything you please and get away with it. That’s where we are.”
— Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), quoted by the Boston Globe, while campaigning for Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Geoff Diehl (R).
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), “the most prolific fund-raiser in the Senate, raised more than a million dollars a month in the first three months of the year, and more than 10 times what each of her Republican opponents raised during the same period,” the Boston Globe reports.
“Warren’s campaign says the $3.12 million amassed during the year’s first quarter gives her an eye-popping total of $15 million cash in the bank more than six months before Election Day.”
“Even more disheartening for her Republican rivals: Her fund-raising tally — and the gulf with her opponents — could easily grow larger.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said she would serve her full six-year term in the Senate if reelected this November, Politico reports.
Said Warren: “Yes, that’s my plan. I’m running for the United States Senate in 2018. I am not running for president of the United States. That’s my plan.”
Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate John Kingston (R), who is pouring millions of his own dollars into his campaign, couldn’t name the U.S. House member who represents the district in which he lives, the Boston Globe reports.
“Kingston, who is campaigning to join the state’s congressional delegation as one of its major players, said he thought it was a Democrat from Cambridge… But then he went to the Internet and discovered who represents his hometown: Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), who has been in Congress since 2013. (She is indeed, a Democrat, but from Melrose.)”
A new WBUR poll in Massachusetts finds that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Gov. Charlie Baker (R) both retain wide leads over challengers who are struggling to gain broad public attention.
Key finding: “All of Elizabeth Warren and Baker’s current challengers suffer from a lack of name recognition; for each of the seven, most voters polled had never heard of them.”
Boston Globe: “This time the attacks are coming from someone new: Robert Mercer, a New York billionaire who is trying to remake American politics and who bankrolled former Trump chief strategist Stephen Bannon’s Republican revolution.”
“Mercer’s methods are anything but subtle. One political operative described Mercer’s approach to politics as a ‘trail of tears’ tactic, a reference to President Andrew Jackson’s forced removal of Native Americans from their homelands.”
“Given political realities — including Warren’s massive fund-raising advantage and Massachusetts’ liberal status — Mercer’s intent isn’t really to defeat her in the 2018 Senate race, according to three people with knowledge of the family’s intentions. Instead, Robert Mercer and his politically minded middle daughter Rebekah have a longer term goal: They want to sand down some of Warren’s gloss ahead of an expected presidential campaign in 2020.”
“Republicans are getting a jump on Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign,” McClatchy reports.
“The Massachusetts Democrat is preparing to run for re-election to the Senate in 2018 and hasn’t said yet whether she’ll challenge President Donald Trump for the White House. But in-state and national Republican officials have decided to target the liberal icon anyway, saying they will try to inflict enough damage during the Senate race to harm any future presidential effort — and perhaps dissuade her from running altogether.”
“Already, one national Republican group has begun a comprehensive effort to track Warren’s every public appearance and add to a dossier of unflattering research on her.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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