BOSTON (AP) — Kevin O’Connor, an attorney, has defeated fellow Republican Shiva Ayyadurai in the Massachusetts GOP U.S. Senate primary.
O’Connor has pitched himself as a candidate who can help clean house in Washington.
“We’ve been sending the same people to Washington for generations, and they keep delivering the same results,” O’Connor said in video when announcing his candidacy.
The father of four has also said there should be term limits for lawmakers. If elected, O’Connor said he would be a champion for education and “stand up to the deficit spenders in both parties, promote affordable health care and a sustainable environment, and support a ‘peace through strength’ foreign policy.”
O’Connor criticized both Democratic candidates in the race — incumbent U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, campaigning for another six-year term, and his Democratic primary challenger, U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy lll, a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy.
“Ed Markey is a democratic socialist who touts his unity with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Joe Kennedy III pushes for a liberal agenda that is nearly identical to Bernie Sanders’ plan,” O’Connor said in a recent fundraising email. “Both are career politicians with a combined total of over 50 years in office. Neither can truly represent the people of Massachusetts.”
O’Connor has said he also supports continuing the Electoral College system for presidential elections, will fight for tax reforms that he said benefit families and industries in Massachusetts, opposes what he calls socialized medicine, and backs a federal energy policy that strives for sustainability, renewability and self-reliance.”
O’Connor has served on the executive committee of the Boston Bar Association Council and is a founding member of the BBA’s diversity and inclusion committee.
O’Connor faces a daunting challenge.
The last time Massachusetts elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate was in 2010, when voters selected then-state Sen. Scott Brown in a special election to fill the remainder of Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy’s term after Kennedy died in 2009. Scott was defeated two years later by Democrat Elizabeth Warren, who was re-elected in 2018.
The coronavirus upended the way candidates could reach out to voters during the primary — limiting traditional means of campaigning like knocking on doors, shaking hands or holding rallies.
O’Connor will face Markey in November.
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