The Most Important Race in MA Isn’t the One You Think
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 3, 2026
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Vincent Errichetti
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The Most Important Race in MA Isn’t the One You Think
Every election cycle, political observers tell Massachusetts voters that the marquee contest is the one on Beacon Hill. In 2026, that conventional wisdom is dead wrong. The U.S. Senate seat is the most consequential race on the ballot. The man currently holding it doesn’t even live here to feel the consequences.
Let’s start with Ed Markey. While Massachusetts families pay one of the highest electricity rates in the nation, Senator Markey is comfortably paying his electric bill in Chevy Chase, Maryland. That’s not a rumor. It’s a matter of public record. Massachusetts residents pay approximately 31.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. In Chevy Chase, serviced by PEPCO, the residential rate is 13.25 cents per kilowatt-hour. Massachusetts ratepayers pay more than twice what Senator Markey pays. The man who has spent 53 years in elected office crafting the energy mandates driving our bills through the roof isn’t forced to pay them himself. The truth: Ed Markey doesn’t live here. Check his water bill in Malden. The City of Malden charges Markey the legal minimum allowed under the law. That only happens when there isn’t a single water faucet running.
On housing, the contrast is just as vivid. Massachusetts has one of the most unaffordable housing markets in the country, pricing out young families and working-class residents at a pace threatening the state’s future. Senator Markey rests comfortably in one of Maryland’s most affluent suburbs, insulated from the crisis his constituents face every time they renew a lease or apply for a mortgage. He is the author of policies whose costs he will never personally bear.
Now here is why the Senate seat matters more than the conventional favorite on Beacon Hill — and why even a strong victory for change there would face real limits from Day One.
Anyone taking the corner office walks into a Democratic supermajority in both chambers of the state legislature. Vetoes overridden at will. Budgets written without input. An agenda set entirely by the other party. The levers of real power simply aren’t available in that environment.
A U.S. Senate seat operates in an entirely different universe. In Washington, I don’t need a friendly majority on Beacon Hill. I don’t need the Speaker’s permission. I have a vote, a committee seat, and a chair at the appropriations table — where the decisions that actually shape life in Massachusetts get made, regardless of what party controls the State House.
That matters enormously, because federal money is the engine that runs this state. Roughly 40 cents of every dollar in Massachusetts’ annual budget flows from Washington. The person fighting for Massachusetts at that table isn’t just a senator; they are the state’s most powerful financial advocate.
Consider what’s immediately at stake. Massachusetts is in a housing crisis. Federal housing dollars can accelerate construction in ways no Beacon Hill bill can match. I can bring those resources home without asking a supermajority for permission.
Our roads, bridges, and transit infrastructure are crumbling. Federal infrastructure funding is the difference between a state that modernizes and one that declines. I can deliver those dollars.
On energy, Massachusetts ratepayers pay more than twice what residents of Chevy Chase pay because of mandates untethered from grid reality. Nuclear energy — clean, reliable, and increasingly cost-competitive — represents a generational opportunity to lower costs and strengthen our grid. I can champion federal investment in next-generation nuclear from Washington while Ed Markey lectures us about sacrifice from his affordable Maryland home.
On healthcare, Medicaid funding from Washington is the single largest driver of Massachusetts health coverage. Every federal reimbursement negotiation affects hospitals, nursing homes, and patients across this Commonwealth. That fight happens in Washington. Not on Beacon Hill.
Massachusetts needs a senator who actually lives here, feels the bills, and can fight effectively. The most powerful vote a Massachusetts resident can cast in 2026 is for the Senate. I intend to earn it.
John Deaton is a Candidate for U.S. Senate, Veteran and Lead Plaintiff, Deaton et al. v. Clerk of the House.
JOHN DEATON will fight for what is right.
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