Live results: Sen. Ed Markey has handed Rep. Joe Kennedy the first election loss for a Kennedy in Massachusetts history.
MASSACHUSETTS — Sen. Ed Markey has done what no Massachusetts politician has done before: Defeat a Kennedy. Markey survived a fierce challenge by Rep. Joe Kennedy in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate. Kennedy called Markey to concede the race around 10 p.m.
The victory sets up Markey, 74, to retain his seat following an unexpected challenge that turned contentious down the stretch, the Peabody Patch reported on Tuesday night.
For Kennedy, 39, it leaves the bearer of the most recognizable name in American politics on the outside looking in. And for the Kennedy dynasty, it’s the first time losing an election in Massachusetts.
The congressman will be succeeded in the 4th District, which saw a horde of candidates take aim at a rarely available House seat.
“No matter the results tonight, I would do this again with all of you in a heartbeat,” Kennedy told supporters in Watertown.
Markey had 55 percent of the vote with 36 percent of precincts reporting, according to the New York Times.
Markey will face Kevin O’Connor, an attorney who defeated Shiva Ayyadurai in a Republican primary, in the November general election.
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Kennedy had spent months trying to convince voters it’s time for a change by showing out his progressive bona fides. Markey countered by arguing his lengthy record should trump Kennedy’s dynastic name.
Both appeared to have made a case for themselves, each enjoying solid leads in the polls at various points. But Kennedy’s advantage peaked far too early, and he couldn’t dig himself out of what was a double-digit hole as recently as this weekend.
Kennedy’s challenge raised more than a few eyebrows among Democrats, who wondered if his opposition was for the good of the party or the candidate.
The race started out as trivial to some. Why would Kennedy, safely seated in his district, try to take down a popular progressive with whom he has admittedly few policy splits, during an election season where Democrats are desperate to uproot Donald Trump?
“The difference between me and Senator Markey isn’t political ideology,” Kennedy tweeted 72 hours before Election Day. “It’s the way we serve and show up for the people who need help most.”
The tweet was an extension of Kennedy’s digs at where Markey spends his time following a Boston Globe story detailing how relatively few nights the senator spent in Massachusetts over the past three-plus years.
And that’s largely where Kennedy kept his attacks, on the periphery, avoiding many direct hits on Markey’s record.
But even as both candidates danced around an all-out offensive, the race corroded into a barrage of at times bitter accusations in the dog days of summer.
Kennedy’s campaign accused Markey’s of fostering a vitriolic tone that fueled online harassment and death threats toward the congressman. Markey’s campaign distanced itself from his purported supporters, while the senator himself condemned the negative attacks during a debate.
It took Markey until August to take aim at what he argued was Kennedy coasting on his political bloodlines. Markey landed the viral haymaker of the race during a debate in which he challenged Kennedy to tell his father not to contribute to a PAC working against the senator.
Kennedy leaned into the opportunity to tout his family’s accomplishments, dating all the way back to his great uncle President John F. Kennedy and grandfather U.S. Sen. and Attorney General Bobby Kennedy.
But the race was always about the future of the party, not the past — something both candidates publicly embraced.
To that end, Markey won key early endorsements in Warren and Ocasio-Cortez, who threw their considerable weight behind the senator. Kennedy’s highest-profile endorsement also came from a big name, but one much closer to the establishment: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
With two well-liked Democrats going at it in a race many in the party didn’t see as necessary, something had to give.
While the Kennedys were unblemished in elections, Markey had not lost one since voters first delivered him to the State House as a representative in 1973.
He went to Washington as a congressman three years later and took Sen. John Kerry’s seat after Kerry was tapped as President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State.
