Joe Kennedy, Ed Markey take their U.S. Senate primary battle to the streets of Boston

After months confined to the virtual realm, U.S. Sen. Edward Markey and U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III are taking their primary battle back to the streets in a scramble to lock up key voters as time runs short in their hotly contested race.

“For five months we’ve been locked in our attic, and we haven’t been able to get out and we haven’t been able to get about, so we’re trying to make up for lost time now,” Kennedy told a group of supporters outside Merengue Restaurant in Roxbury. “For the next 31 days, so I can continue the fight, I need your help. I need everything you’ve got.”

The Senate primary rivals are trading livestreams for socially distanced rallies with one month left until primary day, taking advantage of an ebb in the pandemic to resume a modified form of in-person campaigning down the home stretch.

As they hit the road again, a new poll drove home what strategists and insiders have been saying for weeks now — that the race is a dead heat, and could very much come down to turnout.

The independent, crowd-funded poll of 500 likely Democratic primary voters by Louisiana-based JMC Analytics showed Markey edging Kennedy 40% to 36%, within the survey’s 4.4% margin of error. Among the 24% of undecideds, 44% were leaning toward Markey while 41% were breaking toward Kennedy.

Both camps have launched extensive virtual get-out-the-vote efforts to lock down those supporters and undecideds as voters began receiving and returning their applications for mail-in ballots.

“I believe it’s better for the Democratic Party, our country, our democracy if more people vote,” Kennedy told the Herald. “And I also think the more people vote, the better I do.”

But with the Sept. 1 primary looming and with early in-person voting beginning on Aug. 22, the rivals went pre-pandemic on Saturday — racing across the eastern part of the state to reach voters through a series of rallies and meet-and-greets that culminated late afternoon with dueling Boston events.

Kennedy stood with Stop & Shop workers demanding hazard pay in Somerville, met with Brazilian business owners in Framingham and ended with the rally in Roxbury — all reflective of his campaign’s focus on working people, Black and immigrant communities.

“We have to turn out the inner city, the Black and brown people, the people that may not have readily been engaged with the political process,” including women, Kennedy senior adviser and Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins said in Roxbury.

Markey toured the North Shore before heading to East Boston in a play for the Latino community analysts say has emerged as a crucial battleground.

“The Latino electorate could be a swing electorate,” Boston-based Democratic strategist Wilnelia Rivera said. “It’s a sizable enough electorate that also hasn’t stayed with Markey the way that everybody else has.”

Markey told the Herald, “We believe that we’re going to do extremely well in the Latino community.”

Speaking to a few dozen people, the incumbent touted the Green New Deal, panned the deeply unpopular Eversource substation proposed nearby and focused on socioeconomic disparities.

“These disparities did not start during the coronavirus crisis,” Markey said as two people drove around hollering into a bullhorn for him to “release your travel records,” which the senator did in part earlier this week.

Markey remained upbeat, telling the Herald, “The momentum is really picking up dramatically over the last month and we really sense that we are on the way to victory.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/30k52he