Senate nominee John Deaton says it's time to end one-party rule in Massachusetts
BOSTON - Massachusetts Republican nominee for U.S. Senate John Deaton is, according to polls, a longshot during Tuesday's Election Day showdown against Democrat Elizabeth Warren. But in a conversation with WBZ-TV, Deaton made his case for why he believes he should be the next senator of Massachusetts.
"I've never been a Trump voter"
Deaton has conspicuously distanced himself from former President Donald Trump, a somewhat unusual move for a Republican candidate in an era of intense partisanship.
"I was excited, to be honest with you, on paper, when President Trump first announced," he said. "You know, someone who's an outsider, someone who had been a Democrat and a Republican, a businessman, non-partisan - would sort of look at running the country more as an executive would in business."
But Deaton was turned off by Trump's 2015 remarks that Vietnam War prisoner of war Sen. John McCain was "not a war hero; he's a war hero because he got captured."
"That really took me back. Someone who served in the Marine Corps, I was really taken aback by that," said Deaton, who did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020. "Just too much divisiveness. And if you know my story, I kind of grew up in conflict and violence and hate and all of that, and it's something that I try to reject in my life. And so I've never been a Trump voter."
In his challenge to incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Deaton has criticized her for divisiveness, as well, saying, "Fighting against the rich is not the same as fighting for the working and middle class."
John Deaton vs. Elizabeth Warren
As an example, Deaton cited Warren's objections to healthcare giant United Healthcare acquiring the troubled Steward hospital chain because United was, in Deaton's words, "a big, bad for-profit company." But when the deal fell through, "hundreds of people lost their jobs," he said. "So that's an example of [when] fighting against things isn't the same as fighting for people.... I fought major corporations for 222 years, the biggest in the world - the Dow Chemicals, the Monsantos of the world, the Pfizers ... but I was always fighting for my clients, and that's just a big difference, in my opinion."
From polling to past history, Deaton's Senate bid is considered by many to be a longshot. But when asked if we will hear from him again, he answered, "Yes, you will."
"We have to do something about the one-party rule here in Massachusetts. I think even an objective lifelong Democrat would agree with that," he said. "We really need to have a healthy Republican Party because I think Massachusetts today is a case study in what happens when there's only one-party rule, and I'd feel the same way if 88% of the Legislature was Republican and all of the executive offices were Republican as well."