Massachusetts Republicans Pick Attorney John Deaton to Take on Sen. Elizabeth Warren

BOSTON (AP) — Lawyer John Deaton won a three-way Republican primary to take on the incumbent U.S. senator. Elizabeth Warrenwho ran unopposed in the Massachusetts primary on Tuesday.

Deaton, a former U.S. Marine and cryptocurrency lawyer born in Detroit, announced earlier this year that he would run for the chance to challenge Warren in November as she seeks her third term. He beat fellow Republicans Bob Antonellis, an industrial engineer, 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 that will hold Elizabeth Warren accountable for her failures at the border, the unaffordable cost of raising a family, a broken health care system, the abandonment of our ally Israel, and restoring trust in our politics,” Deaton said.

Warren said in an email that she had agreed to two debates in October, one in Boston and one in Springfield.

“A small handful of crypto billionaires and corporate special interests invested over $2 million in a super PAC to personally select their preferred Republican candidate, and now Massachusetts voters have a clear choice that could determine control of the Senate,” Warren campaign manager Janice Rottenberg said in a statement.

Relatively unknown in Massachusetts politics, Deaton faces a steep climb against Warren, a former Harvard law professor who won a Senate seat twice but came in third in Massachusetts in her 2020 presidential bid. She remains popular in the heavily Democratic state.

Warren faced a competitive race in her first run for the U.S. Senate in 2012, when she unseated the Republican incumbent Scott BrownShe 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 Republican Democratic primary candidate Rob Burke has no challenger in his race for a 12th full term. Videographer Rob Burke beat out two other Republicans — Jim Govatsos, a health care worker and retired Verizon employee, and Daniel Kelly, a bar owner — for the chance to face Lynch in November.

Burke challenged Lynch in the 2022 general election, receiving 30% of the vote to Lynch’s 70%. Biden won this Boston-area district in 2020 with 67% of the vote. Lynch had about $1.1 million in the bank as of the end of June. None of his Republican opponents reported raising money.

Democrats control the Bay State’s congressional delegation, with both U.S. Senate seats and all nine U.S. House seats firmly in their column. They also hold lopsided supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature, where all seats are up for election in November. Still, Republicans hope to strengthen their hold in the state Senate, where they flipped a vacant Democratic seat in 2023.