Rep. John Larson’s loss in Connecticut is a potential warning sign to other Democratic incumbents seeking to fend off challengers over the next month of primaries in New England.
The most endangered: Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee.
The highly unpopular governor has trailed rival Helena Foulkes, a longtime CVS executive whose grandfather and uncle were both senators from Connecticut, by as much as 20 points in polls in a bitter rematch of their 2022 primary. Their race does not break cleanly along ideological or generational lines and could boil down to gripes about the partially closed Washington Bridge.
McKee is massively lagging behind Foulkes in the money race. And in another potential sign of trouble, he appears to be going dark on the airwaves.
Not far away, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey appears better positioned against his primary challenger, Rep. Seth Moulton, in a generational-change contest that otherwise upends the norms of many of such primaries this cycle.
The incumbent is a longtime politician. But he’s also a progressive who coauthored the Green New Deal and is backed by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). He thrashed his last primary challenger who pushed for generational change — now-former Rep. Joe Kennedy III — by 10 points in 2020.
Moulton, meanwhile, is a moderate military veteran and former presidential hopeful who’s racked up endorsements from some of his centrist colleagues. VoteVets, the group that works to elect Democratic veterans and spent over $900,000 on the airwaves boosting former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, who defeated Larson on Tuesday, is backing Moulton as well, though it has yet to air any advertising on his behalf. Emily Cherniack of New Politics, a group that works to elect Democratic military veterans and public servants that has backed Bronin and Moulton, said she sees parallels between the two former military members who’ve held elective office and aren’t running to the left.
“Voters are ready for new leadership rooted in service and not seniority. I think there’s just an anti-establishment seniority vibe this cycle,” Cherniack said. The Connecticut race “broke late, too. Luke was not ahead in the polling until recently. And I think Massachusetts as well is going to break very late.”
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