Ed Markey defeats Republican challenger Kevin O’Connor for another Senate term: AP

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey cruised to victory over Republican challenger Kevin O’Connor on Tuesday night, closing the chapter on what was — at least through the primary — the toughest re-election battle of his career.

The Associated Press called the race when polls closed in Massachusetts at 8 p.m.

The progressive stalwart has come a long way since he was down by double digits against U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III last fall. The Green New Deal co-author, buoyed by a groundswell of young people and progressives, flipped the script in both polling and fundraising and sent the 39-year-old Kennedy packing.

He then refocused on O’Connor, who sought to weaponize the incumbent’s signature climate policy against him and paint the progressive as “out of the mainstream of his own party.”

In the face of an economy in tatters due to the coronavirus pandemic and activists’ calls to “defund the police,” O’Connor campaigned on a “common sense” platform of neighborhood safety and good jobs.

The 58-year-old Dover attorney and political newcomer faced a particularly uphill battle running as a Republican both in a deep-blue state and under the umbrella of a presidential election that so starkly became a referendum on President Trump. The challenger leaned in hard to a message of bipartisanship to bridge the gap in a hyper-partisan political climate, but he ultimately fell short.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/364YCUX