Kennedy announces campaign for Massachusetts seat in US Senate
BOSTON — Rep. Joe Kennedy III formally declared his candidacy for the U.S. Senate on Saturday, becoming the first member of the Kennedy political dynasty to bid for the upper chamber of Congress since Edward M. Kennedy in 1962.
The Massachusetts Democrat formally announced his campaign in an email before a kickoff event in East Boston, where the Kennedy clan first settled after arriving from Ireland well over a century ago.
“I’m running because our country is at a moment of truth,” Kennedy told supporters. “Donald Trump has forced a long-overdue reckoning in America. And how we respond will say everything about who we are.”
Joe Kennedy is a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, who was attorney general in his brother John F. Kennedy’s White House and was a senator running for the Democratic presidential nomination when he was assassinated in 1968. JFK was felled by an assassin’s bullet five years earlier, in 1963.
Joe Kennedy, 38, will face 73-year-old incumbent Sen. Edward Markey in next year’s primary.
Joe Kennedy’s father, Joseph Kennedy, also served in Congress. Others elected to office include former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy II and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who served two terms as Maryland’s lieutenant governor.
First elected to Congress in 2012, Kennedy has tried to position himself as more of a pragmatist than those on the left of his party. Nevertheless, he has adopted many of the causes driving the party’s liberal wing. He has called for Congress to initiate impeachment efforts against Trump and has backed a Medicare for All bill in the House. He has also said he supports the Green New Deal initiative to combat climate change, something Markey is championing.
Given his political pedigree, Kennedy has been seen as a rising star in the...