Ed Markey, Kevin O'Connor Ready For Lone U.S. Senate Debate

BOSTON — Republican senate hopeful Kevin O'Connor is short on time and opportunities to convince Massachusetts voters why they should supplant a longstanding progressive champion with a President Trump-supporting lawyer from Dover. He'll get one of his few shots Monday night, when he meets U.S. Sen. Ed Markey in their only scheduled debate.

The debate is set to take place on GBH News at 7 p.m. and will be moderated by the station's Jim Braude and Margery Eagan. Patch will carry a livestream Monday night. The debate is happening less than two weeks before early voting starts and less than a month before the Nov. 3 general election.

O'Connor has lobbied for more debates, going so far as to question if the senator fears him. It's a familiar line from lesser-known GOP candidates challenging established Democratic incumbents this fall.

"Democratic opponents are running away," Tom Mountain, vice chair of the Massachusetts Republican Party, said at a September rally in Melrose where Republican congressional candidate Caroline Colarusso pressed for debate time against U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark. "They don't want to debate because they're afraid to debate us. They don't have the answers."

Markey's campaign said the senator has already debated several times leading up to his state primary victory against Congressman Joe Kennedy III. (Clark's campaign said it was working on setting up a debate.)

Markey's defeat of Kennedy drew national attention, not only as the first time a Kennedy lost an election, but also solidifying the 74-year-old Malden Democrat as a leading face of the progressive wing.

It's hard to imagine anything short of the biggest upset in the country making many headlines this time around. Markey's victory, as is the case in most statewide races, made him the de facto winner of his U.S. Senate seat.

But O'Connor won a primary of his own, topping Shiva Ayyadurai on the Republican side. And he thinks it's time for a fresh voice.

Touting himself as a "common sense candidate," O'Connor is a newcomer to the political field. The 58 year old supports term limits — he said he'd serve no more than two terms if elected — and while he supports the president, he told WBUR there is more than enough daylight between the two.

Markey likely won't let voters separate O'Connor from Trump, who the senator hasn't shied away from.

Conversely, O'Connor has tried to tie Markey to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the latter with whom he co-wrote the Green New Deal.

O'Connor believes in climate change, but thinks the Green New Deal would "wreck the American economy and stifle the necessary innovation we need to actually affect positive change on environmental issues," according to his website.

Markey has been a hailed as a champion against climate change by environmentalist groups, the Sunrise Movement chief among them.

"He knows that our climate crisis is the national security, economic, health, and moral challenge of our time," the youth-oriented group said in its endorsement.

If O'Connor is to come close to making this a race to watch, he'll need to win voters on the other side. Massachusetts Republicans make up fewer than 10 percent of the electorate. A Massachusetts Republican hasn't won a U.S. Senate seat since Scott Brown's special election victory in 2010.

Another, more unusual, obstacle for O'Connor could be a couple TV channels over.

The New England Patriots are taking on the Kansas City Chiefs in an impromptu Monday night football game after positive COVID-19 tests prompted Sunday's contest to be rescheduled. With the debate and game scheduled to kick off at the same time, the number of voters O'Connor can reach will be even further diluted.