Republicans in Elected Deaton to Face Warren in MA Senate Race – Boston News, Weather, Sports

BOSTON (AP) — Attorney John Deaton won a three-way Republican primary to face incumbent U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who ran without an opponent in Tuesday’s Massachusetts primary.

Deaton, a former U.S. Marine and cryptocurrency lawyer who was born in Detroit, announced earlier this year that he would seek a chance to challenge Warren in November when she runs for a third term. He defeated fellow Republicans, industrial engineer Bob Antonellis and Quincy City Council Speaker Ian Cain.

Deaton said in a statement that he was honored by the voters’ support.

“Tomorrow, we begin the next phase of the campaign — an effort to hold Elizabeth Warren accountable for her failures at the border, the unaffordable cost of raising a family, our broken health care system, the abandonment of our ally Israel, and restoring faith in our politics,” Deaton said.

Warren wrote in an email that she has accepted two October debates: one in Boston and one in Springfield.

“A handful of crypto billionaires and corporate interest groups poured more than $2 million into a super PAC to handpick their preferred Republican candidate, and now Massachusetts voters have a clear choice that could decide control of the Senate,” Warren campaign manager Janice Rottenberg said in a statement.

A relative unknown in Massachusetts politics, Deaton faces a difficult challenge against Warren, a former Harvard Law professor who won a Senate seat twice but finished third in Massachusetts in her 2020 presidential campaign. She remains popular in the heavily Democratic state.

Warren ran in her first U.S. Senate campaign in 2012, when she unseated Republican incumbent Scott Brown. She received more than 60% of the vote in 2018. Biden won the state with 66% of the vote in the 2020 presidential race.

In eastern Massachusetts’ 8th Congressional District, U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch is unchallenged in the primary for a 12th full term. Videographer Rob Burke beat out two other Republicans — health care worker and retired Verizon employee Jim Govatsos and bar owner Daniel Kelly — for the chance to face Lynch in November.

Burke challenged Lynch in the 2022 general election with 30% of the vote, compared to 70% for Lynch. Biden won the Boston-area district in 2020 with 67% of the vote. Lynch had about $1.1 million in the bank at the end of June. None of his Republican rivals have reported raising any money.

Democrats have a lock on the Bay State’s congressional delegation, with both U.S. Senate seats and all nine U.S. House seats firmly in their fold. They also hold lopsided supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature, where all seats are up for election in November. Still, Republicans hope they can build on their foothold in the state Senate, where they picked up a Democratic vacancy in 2023.

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