Candidates make final push for votes ahead of primary

BOSTON (AP) — Candidates for the U.S. Senate and House scrambled to make their final pitches to voters ahead of Tuesday’s Massachusetts primary in a campaign held under the shadow of the coronavirus.

U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, who is challenging incumbent U.S. Sen. Edward Markey in the Democratic Senate primary, planned to appeal to voters in Springfield, Holyoke, Chicopee, Worcester, Lowell, Lawrence and the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston.

He's scheduled to wrap up the campaign with an outdoor event Monday evening at the IBEW 103 parking lot in the city’s Dorchester neighborhood.

Kennedy is hoping to become the next member of the famed political family to claim a seat in the Senate.

Markey planned a bus tour Monday with “get out the vote” events in Brookline, and the Roxbury, Mattapan, Dorchester and Jamaica Plain neighborhoods of Boston.

He plans to conclude the day with an evening drive-in rally in the city’s West Roxbury neighborhood.

Kennedy has promised “a new generation of leadership” in the Senate if elected. Markey has pitched himself as the true progressive, pointing to his introduction of the Green New Deal climate change initiative.

A number of recent polls have given Markey an edge in the race, but a Kennedy has never lost a campaign for Congress in Massachusetts. Both candidates have wrestled with the safest way to hold campaign events during the pandemic.

Tuesday’s primary will also decide the winner of the Republican senate primary pitting Kevin O’Connor, a lawyer, against fellow Republican Shiva Ayyadurai, who ran a failed campaign for Senate in 2018. Ayyadurai planned stops in Quincy, Plymouth, Barnstable, New Bedford and Brockton on Monday.

Primary candidates in four of the state’s nine congressional districts are also making...