In February of 2024, John Deaton announced his campaign for Senate, winning 40.4% of the vote, losing to incumbent Elizabeth Warren.
Now, Deaton is running for Senate a second time, challenging Edward J. Markey.
Born into generational poverty, relying on government assistance, fighting cancer, and earning a Bachelor’s from Eastern Michigan University and a JD from Boston College, Deaton believes that his story was one of the last reflecting the “American dream.”
The Republican candidate and Marine veteran expresses his views in a way that strays from partisan politics, framing himself as a “fierce independent.”
Deaton distrusts current leaders and believes in transparency in government. His legislative agenda focuses on nuclear energy, supporting initiatives for small module reactors (SMRs) to reduce energy costs by utilizing their small size to place in many different locations.
He also touches on affordable housing, putting forth a plan to build 5 million homes in five years on federal and state land.
How does your life experience translate to your campaign and into your view of politics in general?
“We are all a sum of our life experiences. In life, I’m 58 years old, and certainly I’m a sum of those life experiences. And it’s my life experiences that I think make me most uniquely qualified. For example, as you mentioned, poverty. Poverty is something that’s driven me, you know, all my life. And even though I am no longer poor, as I explained …when I gave my announcement speech, it sticks with you forever.”
“Serving … in the Marines for seven years, it gives you a sense of what people do to give us our freedoms and the sacrifice that they go through. And so it just impacts … your whole outlook, because you’re talking about the best people in the world putting on a uniform and going where their country said “go,” and putting up with the sacrifice, the sacrifices on the family that take place. And it just gives you a certain perspective that if you didn’t serve in the military, you just wouldn’t have that if you weren’t, if you didn’t grow up poor and went to bed hungry, you can try to relate, you can be sympathetic, but you will never get it to that level.”
What was the defining moment that led you to run for Senate?
“The middle class keeps getting smaller and smaller. The difference between the haves and a have nots, just gets wider and and then I just said to myself, ‘if I was 14 years old again with the work ethic and attitude that I had, could I do, if I was given a chance, could I accomplish today what I accomplished all those years ago, or has that kid been priced out of that opportunity?’”
How would you define your main constituency?
“It would be the working man and woman, the same constituency I’ve represented as a lawyer, like I said, auto mechanics, HVAC people, engineers, electricians, insulators, pipe fitters, welders, working Americans. I mean, I certainly also view the poor as a constituent, because I consider them in the working class.”
You recently filed a lawsuit to enforce the legislative audit mandate in Massachusetts, how did you keep your constituents in mind when filing this lawsuit?
“It mainly is transparency, and it’s not just taxpayers. I’m a taxpayer. I think taxpayers deserve to know how their dollars are being spent. That’s easy, right? But also, if we, if we clean up the books and we get rid of fraud and waste, then that allows for more benefits for people, potentially. So it’s a lot of times the conservative Republican would be like, it’s all about the taxpayer, and it is, but it’s also about being able to do better for people as well.”
Massachusetts hasn’t had a Republican Senator since 2010, Scott Brown. Many say he won that seat because he was a “liberal Republican.” How are you different?
“But what makes me different is you could give an issue, and … you wouldn’t be able to say ‘Deaton is going to say this.””
How are you similar?
“I think what would make me more similar to Scott Brown was that fierce independence.”
What are you doing differently this time?
“This time, before I even announced that I was running, I took a lot of effort to reach out to people who who were Republicans but did not support me, I’ll tell you a lesson I learned was I made an assumption, which shows you my naivete in politics as a first timer, I assumed that even if I’m not your ideal Republican candidate for a certain Republican voter, me versus Elizabeth Warren would be the easiest of decisions, right? Even if you had a slightly conservative bone in your body compared to Senator Warren, I’d be the easy choice. Well, that was a wrong assumption to make because they have the option to not vote for either of us right, just to blank it.”
You’ve described yourself as a free thinker and fiercely independent, why run as a Republican then?
“I’m never going to challenge Elizabeth Warren. [The Democratic Party is] going to say, ‘go away.’And quite honestly, I’m not. I’m not liberal enough. I’m not left enough to win a Democratic primary in Massachusetts. A lot of people didn’t believe I was conservative enough to win a Republican nomination. I believed that I could win the Republican nomination last time, even though I didn’t support President Trump, and a lot of people said I wouldn’t, and I won by 65%. So I’m sharing that with you, because it shows you that my … original thought was the only way I could win in Massachusetts is as an independent-thinking Republican, and because of this two-party system, and I think that that gives me the best opportunity to win.”
Besides winning the seat, what’s your end goal?
“I just want to be able to say I gave it my best to help other people before I checked out of this world. That may sound corny, but … that’s the true motivation for me.”
This article was produced for BINJ.News, the independent weekly magazine published by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, and is syndicated by BINJ’s MassWire news service.
