Ever since the Sept. 1 Massachusetts primary election, there has been a dearth of high quality polling in the U.S. Senate race. To many voters, the result may seem like a foregone conclusion — there were, after all, more votes cast for the losing candidate in the Democratic primary than were cast for both candidates combined in the Republican primary.
An Oct. 26 poll from UMass Amherst and WCVB showed incumbent Sen. Ed Markey leading his Republican challenger Kevin O’Connor by 39 points. That same day, I sat down with O’Connor to discuss his candidacy and his thoughts on the upcoming election.
“I expect we will win, and we will shock the country,” he said.
O’Connor, a lawyer residing in Dover, Mass., has never run for office before now, and he remains optimistic about his chances and the implications his victory would have. O’Connor disagrees with people who think Massachusetts is a lost cause for Republicans.
“That conventional thinking is really off the mark,” he said. “At times like this, when people want safe neighborhoods, and good jobs, and common sense, they turn to Republicans who demonstrate an ability to work across the aisle and get things done.”
O’Connor’s faith in his campaign comes from grassroots support.
“This is a citizen-powered campaign,” he said. “We have taken on the establishment and the empowered Washington D.C. interests and the entrenchment that Sen. Markey represents.”
O’Connor said that his win will send Washington a powerful message.
“[My victory] will tell the entrenched that people are sick of the partisanship and the polarization, and that we want our government to serve the people,” he said.
O’Connor has been walking a delicate line for his entire campaign. He is an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump and popular Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, both of whom have traded criticisms quite conspicuously and are quite unpopular with the other’s base of support. But O’Connor continually bucks attempts to associate him with any particular figure within the GOP.
“I am a free-thinking, independent-minded person. I will never carry water for any politician,” he said.
That being said, he doesn’t think Baker and Trump are as diametrically opposed as others believe.
“I support both of them, and I don’t see any real conflict when you focus on substance,” O’Connor said.
At the same time, O’Connor is lightly critical of Gov. Baker’s shutdown policies to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I would favor opening up more than what we’ve seen,” he said. “I am very concerned about the impact of shutdowns on children and on small businesses and people who need to be physically present in order to make a living.”
Through our interview, O’Connor rarely missed an opportunity to take a shot at Markey, casting him as an unproductive career politician who’s become complacent over the years.
“[Markey’s] never worked a day in the private sector,” he said. “He’s always worked in government and government is the answer to every question.” It is worth noting that Ed Markey did work briefly as a substitute teacher, and, as his campaign likes to highlight, an ice cream man.
Markey has been a legislator since 1973, the year after he graduated law school. He was relatively safe, occupying a strong Democratic seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and graduating to a strong Democratic seat in the Senate. Until Rep. Joe Kennedy III came along, Markey had never faced a serious electoral challenge to his incumbency.
This idea is key to O’Connor’s pitch. Career politicians, to O’Connor, are “the swamp” and “are moving us toward the politics of polarization, gridlock.” O’Connor pitches himself as more in tune with the opinions of Massachusetts voters.
“Sen. Markey with his extremism has really alienated the JFK Democrats,” O’Connor said. O’Connor, on the other hand, describes himself as more down to earth. “I’m a guy … a person who lives in Massachusetts, who had the energy and the organization to run a campaign.”
There is relatively recent precedent for a Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts. Republican Scott Brown won the special election to replace the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2010 in an upset that was quite shocking at the time. But the similarities between the candidates, aside from party allegiance, are few. Where Brown received an influx of out-of-state money for an open seat, O’Connor has been significantly outspent by every major-party candidate in the race, including his Republican primary opponent, and especially Markey. Where Brown was boosted by notable gaffes from Democratic nominee Martha Coakley, Markey is riding high off of his arguably historic victory over Kennedy.
For now, O’Connor maintains that Markey’s seat is vulnerable.
“I saw that he was beatable,” he said. “That’s the office where we need the most improvement.”
Time will tell if O’Connor’s prediction comes true, but the odds are against him.
“I’ll be fine either way,” O’Connor said. “I’m not worried about what happens if I don’t win, but I’m very confident that we will win.”
