NEARLY EVERYONE AGREES that when Joe Kennedy launched his primary challenge nearly a year ago to Sen. Ed Markey, the son of the state’s most storied political family looked like a good bet to oust the veteran Malden pol.
A lot can change in a year, and it has.
With the primary a week away, it seems clear that Markey has erased any advantage gap Kennedy enjoyed, with at least one recent poll showing him pulling away. Joyce Ferriabough Bolling, a veteran Roxbury political strategist, and Stephanie Murray of Politico sized up where things stand on the Codcast’s final pre-primary look at the race.
Ferriabough Bolling said she’s surprised Kennedy didn’t embrace earlier in the race his family name, which she said remains “legendary” to Massachusetts voters. “I know people have been saying, well, not for this generation,” she said. “I don’t believe that.”
But Kennedy seems to have recognized all along that invoking the Kennedy brand could cut both ways. Murray pointed to an Atlantic article from April, when Kennedy acknowledged as much.
With the two candidates closely aligned on nearly every major issue, the race has turned to jabs on other fronts. Kennedy tried to make hay over two fathers’ disappointment with Markey in cases where they went to him for help with dire family situations. The attack didn’t do much for Ferriabough Bolling. Meanwhile, Markey has been taking what have to be called gentle pokes at the Kennedy brand, including a new ad that turns JFK’s famous “Ask not what your country can do for you” line on its head and says it’s time for the country to come through for those who have been left behind.
A big reason why Kennedy looked to be in such a good position early on was that Massachusetts voters didn’t have deep attachment to Markey — or even knowledge of him. Though he’s been a Washington fixture for more than 40 years, the bulk of it was representing Malden and surrounding communities in the Fifth Congressional District. Markey has only been a statewide elected official since 2013, when he won a special election for the Senate.
Last fall, Murray said, 70 percent of voters under 30 had never heard of him, according to a MassINC Polling Group survey. In the months since, Markey’s campaign has fashioned him into something of a retro cult figure among young voters, propelled by his partnership with 30-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the Green New Deal. Murray pointed to a UMass Amherst poll this summer that had Markey with 71 percent support among the same under-30 demographic where he was largely unknown 10 months ago.
“Ed Markey has been in a unique position to kind of reframe himself as the way that voters see him right now,” said Murray. “He took his greatest weakness and turned it into one of his biggest strengths,” she said of Markey’s ability to essentially introduce himself to voters at age 74 after 44 years in Congress.
Murray said Markey’s remarkable transformation into septuagenarian sensation of the younger crowd became clear to her when her editor, who is based in Washington, DC, said his kids have been asking at the dinner table, “Who is Ed Markey, dad? I see him on TikTok all the time.”
MICHAEL JONAS
FROM COMMONWEALTH
Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins seeks a 10-fold bail increase for a homeless defendant after learning the Massachusetts Bail Fund was going to post the money needed to release him.
After 19 years in refugee camps, a Myanmar family is finding a home in Lowell. They’re the first to arrive since the US State Department lifted a coronavirus-related ban on the admission of refugees.
Licensing of new childcare providers is on hold.
Boston students to start the school year at home, working remotely.
Massachusetts unemployment rate highest in the country — again.
Opinion: A new bigger I-90 viaduct is not the answer, say Bradley Campbell of the Conservation Law Foundation and Richard Dimino of A Better City….Nicole LaChapelle, the mayor of Easthampton, says cannabis sales are benefitting our communities….Why is Beacon Hill embracing sick bank bills? asks Margaret Monsell.
FROM AROUND THE WEB
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Lawrence is cracking down on bars operating as restaurants or, as Gov. Charlie Baker put it, masquerading as restaurants. (Eagle-Tribune)
An independent investigation commissioned by the town of Fairhaven to research complaints in the health department includes descriptions by two female employees of an angry and out of control Health Board chairman. (Standard-Times)
HEALTH/HEALTH CARE
Hospital executives don’t belong on corporate boards, says the Globe’s Larry Edelman.
WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
The Food and Drug Administration authorizes use of convalescent plasma as an emergency treatment for coronavirus. (NPR)
In secret recordings of their conversations, President Trump’s sister Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal judge, tells her niece Mary Trump that her brother has “no principles” and “you can’t trust him.” (Washington Post)
ELECTIONS
The New York Times digs in on the Alex Morse saga, in which it says the Holyoke mayor challenging Rep. Richard Neal was the victim of a rush to judgment and now stands vindicated.
Ed Markey has been remade from DC fixture to cool dude who shakes up the system and will help save the planet. (Boston Globe) Joe Kennedy is in a mad final dash to preserve his family’s undefeated record in Massachusetts elections at a time when his name sometimes seems more burden than boon. (Boston Globe)
A Berkshire Eagle editorial endorses Rep. Richard Neal for reelection over Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse. For the newspaper, the key factor was Neal’s power position as chair of the Ways and Means Committee. “When the chips are down in an unprecedented public health and economic crisis, that is an ace in the hole that the district cannot afford to fold,” the paper said.
More than 500,000 ballots were rejected for various reasons in recent primary elections across the country, a number that easily exceeds the potential margin in a close presidential election. (Washington Post)
State Rep. Jerry Parisella says he’s delivered for Beverly, but Democratic primary challenger Ricky Canavan-Wagner says he can do better. (Salem News)
WGBH’s Curiosity Desk answers 13 questions about voting by mail in Massachusetts.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
A number of South Shore movie theaters are opening for business, with a host of restrictions and preventative measures. (Patriot Ledger)
EDUCATION
The president of the Mass. Teachers Association rips as “paternalistic” new state guidelines that call for teachers to report to school buildings to conduct remote lessons. (Boston Herald)
A café at the University of Massachusetts Amherst was temporarily shut down after a dining services employee was diagnosed with the coronavirus. (MassLive)
ARTS/CULTURE
Toppled gravestones of former enslaved people and headstones of abolitionists worn down from more than a century of erosion will be restored in Florence. (MassLive)
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
It’s not just ponds on Cape Cod: Chebacco Lake in Essex has been closed because of a harmful algae bloom. (Gloucester Daily Times)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS
Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. and his assistant plan to fight Ethics Commission charges against them because they fear a settlement could be used against them in criminal proceedings. (Telegram & Gazette)
The new head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration has Fall River roots. (Herald News)