In the Race for Joe Kennedy’s Successor, an Anti-Kennedy Emerges

Ihssane Leckey, a Moroccan immigrant, faces a coterie of Ivy-educated résumé-stuffers in a crowded House primary.

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Four-term Massachusetts congressman Joe Kennedy’s high-profile challenge to progressive Sen. Ed Markey has left many on the left scratching their heads. In addition to the seeming pointlessness of the exercise, Kennedy’s impatience to fulfill his assumed birthright as a United States senator has resulted in a power vacuum in his sprawling Fourth Congressional District, long ruled from the wealthy suburban citadels of Brookline and Newton and stretching deep into the neglected working-class enclaves of Bristol County.

So far, the race is a nine-candidate free-for-all, with a crowded middle lane of suburban moderates vying for the seat, and one progressive firebrand, Ihssane Leckey, standing apart. Leckey, a Moroccan immigrant and former Wall Street regulator, may just be able to use her progressive politics and foregrounding of racial equity to power past the array of empty suits. It would be fitting, as she represents the diametric opposite of the Kennedy dynasty.

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The Boston Brahmins leading the race, ahead in both fundraising and Harvard degrees (five in all), are former Marine and Newton City Council member Jake Auchincloss, his Newton City Council colleague Becky Grossman, and nonprofit-industrial complex mogul Alan Khazei. All three have touted their progressivism in somewhat dubious fashion.

Auchincloss, the fundraising leader, boasts a disturbingly conservative track record, defending the Confederate flag on free-speech grounds after the hate symbol was flown by local high school students and pushing back at city councilors discussing a citywide mask mandate. He also touts his business experience from his time working for Boston-based insurer Liberty Mutual—a leviathan of corporate excess with an indefensible fossil fuel portfolio—as a primary asset.

Khazei, a perennial candidate who failed in two Senate runs, has made voting rights his main issue, but his credentials are diminished by his founding of City Year, an AmericaCorps subsidiary headquartered in Boston with a less-than-sterling track record of paying teenage “volunteers” starvation wages. Grossman has endorsed “moving in the Medicare for All direction” with a public option, but has drawn fire in recent weeks for her vote against a modest police reform motion in Newton, signaling less than a stalwart commitment to progressive values.

In a field of Joe Kennedy doppelgangers replete with Ivy League degrees, progressive packaging, and a documented thirst for power, Ihssane Leckey sits closer to Elizabeth Warren or AOC than anyone else in the race. The only woman of color in the running, Leckey has plastered social media of late with calls for police reform, unequivocally advocated for Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, and made consistent appearances at Boston’s Black Lives Matter protests.

The Brand New Congress–backed Leckey skyrocketed to first place in cash raised in the last quarter, bolstered by the success of progressive primary challengers like Jamaal Bowman, Charles Booker, and Mondaire Jones, and received another boost from her latest endorser, Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

Leckey first came to the United States at age 20, leaving her working-class family and the farm she grew up on in Morocco to pay her way through college in the U.S. with a long string of minimum-wage jobs.

She started out at Manhattan Community College before transferring to the University of Massachusetts Boston and went on to gain acceptance to Boston University. After graduating into the carnage of the 2008 financial crisis, Leckey landed a job as a Wall Street regulator at the Federal Reserve, scrutinizing big-bank offenders like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs and enforcing Dodd-Frank regulations—a bill named after former MA-04 representative Barney Frank.

“I’ve been made to feel like an outsider my whole life,” Ihssane told the Prospect. “I grew up as the daughter of a public-school teacher and a farmer on another continent. When I first came here, I started to learn that the color of your skin, the name that you have, the college you went to—it gives you different opportunities.”

The jumbled field might give Leckey an opportunity that would have otherwise been denied. While no public polling has been released for MA-04, campaign managers report Grossman with a slight lead in a wide-open race, with close to 60 percent of voters still undecided. With so many candidates packed together, Leckey stands a chance of rising above the scrum with her clearly defined political compass and unwavering commitment to progressive issues while the fiefdom leaders of Newton and Brookline duke it out over their respective constituents.

In Brookline, Jesse Mermell, a former selectwoman and aide to former Gov. Deval Patrick, who holds endorsements from SEIU and the Massachusetts Teachers Association, is sure to cut into Khazei’s Brookline vote share. Epidemiologist Natalia Linos, another Brookline native (and proud recipient of three Harvard degrees), makes it a three-way split.

In a field of Joe Kennedy doppelgangers replete with Ivy League degrees, progressive packaging, and a documented thirst for power, Ihssane Leckey sits closer to Elizabeth Warren or AOC than anyone else in the race.

Meanwhile, Grossman and Auchincloss will trade votes in Newton. Chris Zannetos—a tech entrepreneur from the neighboring suburb of Wellesley—has raised over $500,000 and is also sure to take a bite out of the suburban vote.

In the southern half of the district, described by Massachusetts politicos as “Joe Kennedy’s checkup” (he was said to visit only once a year), Leckey could snatch the lead, with her appeals to working-class constituents feeling the weight of four terms of congressional neglect further aggravated by the economic fallout of COVID-19.

“It comes down to how we look at the lived experiences and track records of my opponents and whether that qualifies them to serve the most vulnerable,” Leckey says. “As an immigrant who struggled through poverty in the richest country in the world, this fight for social, racial, and environmental justice—it’s personal.”

Leckey has also carved out a niche by refusing a slew of donors. She’s signed pledges rejecting corporate PAC money; lobbyist money; fossil fuel and pharma donations; big-developer cash; and even police union funds. She draws a sharp contrast to the Ivy-educated insiders who have long ruled MA-04 (Joe Kennedy, Barney Frank) and those who eagerly pursue the continuation of the district’s legacy of white, upper-class leadership.

“I want to end that misery that happens when you’re locked out,” Leckey explains. “To end the misery of working people in our district and country being abandoned by Trump and Congress. When I win, ending that misery, that’s exactly what we are going to do.”

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