Election 2020: Rep. Joe Kennedy III, Sen. Ed Markey tout coronavirus efforts as Senate race heats up

The COVID-19 pandemic is front-and-center in the Democratic Senate primary between U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III and Sen. Ed Markey, with both candidates touting their efforts during the crisis and sparring over social media while traditional campaigning remains on hold.

In a 30-second ad set to air this week, Kennedy focuses on his work in response to COVID-19 while targeting President Donald Trump instead of his opponent.

“Right now our country’s hurting,” Kennedy says in the video from his Newton home. “We need relief. That’s why I’m fighting for life-saving medical equipment, COVID testing for everyone, direct cash payments and paid sick leave for all."

The ad shows Kennedy talking with residents in a Zoom conference, as well as clips of frontline workers, a woman watching the ad itself on an iPhone and snippets from the White House coronavirus task force briefings.

“It will take shared sacrifice and progressive willpower to fix the damage done by President Trump,” says Kennedy, who has focused as a congressman on mental health, substance use disorders and defending the Affordable Care Act. “But together, we will recover and when this crisis has passed, hear me loud and clear, quality health care will be a guaranteed right for all. In the U.S. Senate, I will lead that fight.”

The ad is part of a $1.2 million monthlong blitz that will hit cable channels, Spanish language TV and streaming and digital services starting Thursday, The Boston Globe reported. The campaign says the ad will reach the four media markets that cover Massachusetts, including Boston, Springfield, Albany, New York and Providence.

Kennedy and Markey, whose campaigns have been shaken up amid the coronavirus, including with a stalled Springfield debate, have sparred over social media in recent days.

Markey, an original co-sponsor of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All Act, has focused on his background fighting for Alzheimer’s research and efforts to successfully secure $200 million in National Institutes of Health for a universal flu vaccine.

But Kennedy and others have accused Markey of not being in Massachusetts enough.

“When you look at the communities that have been most affected by this virus ... Chelsea, Lawrence, Brockton, Revere ... Sen. Markey’s leadership has not been present or effective at trying to lift these communities up, hear those voices and actually fight for them," Kennedy said in an interview last month.

Markey used a clip from the interview in a digital video of his own released Monday, tweeting that “there’s no place during this kind of crisis — when people are hurting in so many ways — for negative political attacks, let alone blatantly false ones.”

Markey’s video accuses the congressman of “playing politics with the coronavirus” before showing interviews with Gladys Vega of Chelsea Collaborative and Dan Rivera, the mayor of Lawrence, praising Markey for his efforts.

The video then shows a stream of headlines from local and national outlets highlighting Markey’s work, and closes with the written message, “Ed Markey has been fighting night and day for Massachusetts against coronavirus. Joe Kennedy’s attacks are way out of line."

A Kennedy campaign spokeswoman, Emily Kaufman, tweeted Tuesday that it’s fair to challenge Markey, who’s running on a record of 47 years in office, on “the choices he has made on our behalf” and “to ask why he spends more time in Chevy Chase than in Malden.”

Markey, this past weekend, released a video showing a Malden neighbor, Emmanuel Marsh, a former school committee member, praising Markey as a “regular guy you just see walking down the street” who’s familiar with local matters.

“No matter where he’s gone, he’s never forgotten about his roots,” Marsh said.

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