Kennedy Institute unusual spot for GOP’s Kingston to announce
It’s an odd way for a Republican running for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s seat to launch his campaign — from a place named after the most famous liberal Democrat of them all.
Multimillionaire businessman and philanthropist John Kingston officially jumps into the race tomorrow, and his first stop will be the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, where he’s expected to make a speech ripping into Warren and other hyper partisan pols.
Kingston is running as a GOP centrist who abandoned the party last year when Donald Trump became the presidential nominee, and going to the Kennedy Institute is likely to reinforce his bipartisan message.
“John’s choice of the Kennedy Institute is a statement of his resolve to challenge tired partisan divides, to take his campaign to every voter in Massachusetts, regardless of party, and to dismantle Warren’s Washington — where politicians put petty politics and divisive rhetoric over results,” Kingston spokesman Jon Conradi said.
But here’s the problem: Kingston is not trying to win over every voter right now — he’s running in a GOP primary against at least two other credible candidates and needs to woo Republican voters, many of whom voted for Trump last year.
And don’t expect many Trump voters to flock to Kingston. When he left the party last year and backed an independent candidate for president, Kingston ripped into Trump and predicted the GOP would suffer a massive loss in November.
“It’s going to be carnage on Election Day,” Kingston reportedly said.
Kingston should hope he’s better at campaigning than predicting.
And his trip to the Kennedy Institute isn’t going to help convince voters that he’s a real Republican or repair damage from his decision to leave the party, only to return when he decided to run for U.S. Senate.
Kingston has other ties to the Kennedy family — he once donated money to the congressional campaign of Kennedy cousin Mark Shriver, who ran in Maryland in 2002, according to federal campaign records. Kingston also appears to have donated $500 to another Democrat, former state Rep. Paul Donato, in 2008, records show.
But Kingston is no Democrat, and more in the mold of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose presidential campaign he raised money for.
That means he’s going to be competing for moderate voters against Beth Lindstrom, the former Scott Brown campaign manager who just got into the race a few weeks ago.
And that leaves state Rep. Geoff Diehl, the former state campaign chairman for Trump, as the most viable conservative in the race. If Diehl turns out his Trump voter base and Kingston and Lindstrom split the moderate vote, Diehl probably wins.