Why Rep. Joe Kennedy is mounting a primary challenge to one of the most progressive members of the US Senate

• A surprising primary race in Massachusetts for a reliably Democratic US Senate seat is starting to get heated.
• Rep. Joe Kennedy is taking on Sen. Ed Markey, pitting the young heir to a political dynasty against a strident progressive with less name recognition.
• Kennedy, 39, has ruffled feathers by taking on 73-year-old Markey in a primary, especially without any notable policy disputes. But a deep bench of younger Bay State progressives could be a bigger factor.
• "People don't usually run against someone from their own party with whom they are in substantial agreement on the issues," former long-time Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank told Insider.
• "I think it's the fact that Joe Kennedy — who's an able guy, but I think if he were not from the Kennedy family, with the advantage that gives you — he would not have run against Markey," Frank added.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Democratic primary for US Senate in Massachusetts is heating up, with incumbent Sen. Ed Markey airing his first negative ad this week against the prominent representative challenging him from within his own party.

Markey, a long-time member of Congress, is facing a primary challenge from Democratic congressman Rep. Joe Kennedy III, elected to Congress from a district in the Boston suburbs in 2012 in the September 1 primary election.

Markey served as a Massachusetts state legislator before being elected to the US House in 1976. After 37 years, he ran in and won the 2013 special election to replace longtime Sen. John Kerry, who left the Senate to serve as Secretary of State.

While Kennedy and Markey have remarkably similar political views and support similar policies, Kennedy's campaign argues that the US Senate needs more young leaders from a new generation like himself.

On Monday, Markey put out an ad attacking Kennedy for publicity criticizing him for being "absent" during the coronavirus pandemic, accusing his challenger of playing politics and engaging in unhelpful negative attacks during a crisis.

"This is not a traditional incumbent versus challenger primary," said Brian Jencunas, a Massachusetts-based political communications consultant. "Markey's low name recognition combined with Kennedy's enormous family legacy and high profile as a Congressman made Kennedy the immediate frontrunner."

Markey's new ad, currently running on Facebook as of Monday, comes as Kennedy far outpaces him both in fundraising and in the polls. According to the most recent campaign finance filings, Kennedy has $6.6 million cash on hand compared to $4.4 million for Markey.

"Senator Markey is running on his record. After 47 years in office, it is fair for that record to be challenged. It is fair to ask why he spends more time in Chevy Chase than in Malden. It is fair to ask him to explain votes that have hurt Massachusetts families," Kennedy's communications director Emily Kaufman told Politico Playbook Massachusetts. "And it is fair – given everything we are up against in this moment — to ask if we are really getting everything we can out of this Senate seat."

In the most recent poll of the race, conducted in late February by Suffolk University, the Boston Globe, and WBZ exposed some of Markey's weaknesses. It found Kennedy leading Markey by six percentage points, 42% to 36%. Just 49% said Markey deserves to be re-elected compared to 21% who said he did not and 27% who were undecided. And 41% thought Kennedy would be more of an adversary against Trump compared to 21% who thought Markey would, with almost 36% undecided.

"When a campaign responds to criticism, it's because they think the criticism is damaging," Jencunas told Insider of Kennedy's ad. "Because Markey has such low name recognition and hasn't had a major presence in Massachusetts, his campaign thinks it's worth rebroadcasting the negative to rebut that he doesn't spend time in lower-income cities."

Why this race so notable?

A member of Congress launching a primary challenge to a sitting Senator is rare, even more so in a safe Democratic state that has traditionally relied on machine politics.

"People don't usually run against someone from their own party with whom they are in substantial agreement on the issues," former long-time Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank told Insider. "I think it's the fact that Joe Kennedy — who's an able guy, but I think if he were not from the Kennedy family, with the advantage that gives you — he would not have run against Markey."

David Bernstein, a veteran writer who has covered Massachusetts politics for 30 years and currently contributes to Boston Magazine and WGBH, told Insider that Kennedy's challenge is a major shake-up to business as usual in the state.

"In Massachusetts, it has been very unusual for Democrats to challenge incumbents in a primary, partly because of how dominant the Democratic Party structure has been in the state," Bernstein said. "So if you're a Democrat and you annoy the Democratic Party establishment, that's a tough group to be ostracized by in the state."

For years, it was almost unheard of for Democrats to launch primary challenges against sitting members of Congress. But Rep. Seth Moulton helped turn the tide with his long-shot but ultimately successful 2014 primary challenge of embattled Rep. John Tierney in Massachusetts' 6th district.

In 2018, then-Boston City Councilmember Ayanna Pressley successfully defeated longtime Rep. Mike Capuano in the Boston-based 7th congressional district with a progressive, grassroots campaign backed by Justice Democrats.

Challenging a sitting Senator who has served in Congress since the 1970s in a far taller order. But having the last name Kennedy and close ties to powerful figures in the Democratic establishment goes a long way in Massachusetts.

Why is Kennedy challenging Markey now?

As Bernstein noted, Markey and Sen. Elizabeth Warren are both in their 70s, and either one or both are likely to retire or be tapped for a cabinet position in a future Democratic administration within the next few years. So why not wait until one of those seats opens up?

When an open US Senate seat comes up, the competition among Democrats will be fierce. Kennedy would likely have to contend with highly popular Attorney General Maura Healy and other up-and-coming representatives with big ambitions like Moulton and Pressley, with no guarantee of success despite his famous name and political connections.

Missing out on the chance to run for US Senate now could severely limit Kennedy's chances to seek higher office for decades to come, as was the case for many congressmen before him.

"For a very long time in Massachusetts, those two seats were held by John Kerry and Ted Kennedy. There was literally a quarter of a century where those were the two Senators, and people's career ambitions came and went over a generation with no opportunity there," Bernstein said.

Frank told Insider that while he was initially skeptical of Kennedy's primary challenge.

"I was concerned about that [Kennedy primarying Markey] because — and I said publicly and told Joe Kennedy — I don't like the idea of resources being wasted on campaign funds and energy when there's no gain in terms of public policy, where the issues are purely personal," he said. "And I was worried that might touch off a range of primaries this year. But that, fortunately, hasn't worked out."

How are other members of Congress siding?

The Kennedy-Markey race has unfolded like a proxy race between the Democratic establishment and the progressive wing of the party.

But unlike the vast majority of Democratic primary challenges in recent years, the younger primary challenger is far more aligned with the moderate, establishment wing of the party while the long-time incumbent is supported by progressive, grassroots groups instead.

Markey has been endorsed by a number of US Senators including Warren, several members of Massachusetts' congressional delegation, and high-profile progressive representatives including Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio and Rep. Ro Khanna.

In GovTrack's 2019 ideology scores, which rank members' votes on a scale of 0 to 1, with 1 being most conservative and 0 being most liberal, Markey had a score of 0.10 compared to Kennedy's score of 0.20.

But Jenacus noted that "while Markey leads in legislative endorsements, Kennedy has strong support from labor and a lot more political endorsements than a challenger normally enjoy," including from dozens of members of Congress and Massachusetts-based labor unions.

Markey has substantial credibility among young progressives and environmental groups for his outspoken advocacy on behalf of climate causes and his co-sponsorship of the Green New Deal climate legislation with Ocasio-Cortez last year.

The Senator also has a strong digital organizing team, and an army of dedicated young high schoolers and college students working to help him get re-elected — and making plenty of memes along the way.

Markey is particularly beloved among some young Democratic activists to decades of staunch climate advocacy, his allyship with young progressives like Ocasio-Cortez, and his knack for social media, including recent posts wearing vintage basketball shoes and collaborating with Boston Celtics player Enes Kanter for a (socially-distanced) livestream.

It's unclear whether Markey's decades of service and online popularity will be able to overcome a formidable challenge from Kennedy. And while he's in the lead now, Kennedy is still making a risky gamble seeking to topple a sitting Senator in his own party.

But Bernstein told Insider that it could be worth making given Kennedy's level of ambition and young age, saying, "if he wins this seat, he's safely in it for as long as he wants it."