The U.S. Senate race between Democrat Elizabeth Warren and Republican incumbent Scott Brown officially begins in Massachusetts Thursday.
Mr. Brown officially launched his re-election bid with a campaign rally in Worcester, Massachusetts, The Boston Globe reports. On the same day, Ms. Warren is launching a 24 hour money bomb fundraiser that has reportedly pulled in $200,000 thus far, according to The Huffington Post.
On Wednesday, Senator Brown sent a letter to Ms. Warren asking her to agree to “mechanism” to jointly express their disapproval of third party political advertisements throughout their campaign race. The move would essentially stop the Super PACs that support each candidate from running negative television ads in Massachusetts.
In the agreement, Mr. Brown and Ms. Warren agree that their campaigns will suffer financial penalties if outside groups run political ads supporting one candidate and opposing the other. Each candidate agrees to donate to charity 50 percent of the advertising costs of any ads by third party groups within three days of the ad airing in Massachusetts.
This is an interesting move considering both candidates are essentially agreeing to eliminate the influence of Super PAC ads, which have dominated the current Republican presidential primary race.
Despite the agreement though, Ms. Warren did take a jab at her incumbent opponent on Thursday by mocking his own 2010 campaign tagline that he was running for the “People’s Seat.”
In a 2010 special election to replace the deceased Senator Ted Kennedy, Mr. Brown became the first Republican senator elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts since the early 1970s when Edward Brooke held the seat that he currently occupies.
A late December University of Massachusetts at Lowell/Boston Herald poll of Massachusetts voters resulted in Ms. Warren was leading Mr. Brown, 49 to 42 percent.
Following that poll, in an interview with The Boston Herald, Mr. Brown claimed that Ms. Warren has “every advantage” in the race. The Massachusetts Republican believes the media hasn’t been as harsh in their line of questioning towards her as they are with him.
In recent weeks the Massachusetts senator has called himself the “underdog” in his re-election race to keep his U.S. Senate seat against Ms. Warren.
