Edward Markey

He’s already loaned his campaign $1 million — after putting at least $1 million of his own money into his race against Warren — and is recycling his argument against Warren, casting Markey as too far left for Massachusetts voters.

Deaton argues Massachusetts would be better off with the independent-minded approach he would bring to Washington, rather than reelecting an 80-year-old incumbent Deaton argues has been in office too long.

As he did two years ago, Deaton is pitching himself as unbeholden to Trump, emphasizing that he never voted for the president. In memorable, and coarse, remarks during a June debate, he said bluntly: “‘F’ the Republican Party.”

“‘F’ the Democrat Party,” he added. “They all suck.”

Deaton’s pitch: At least he doesn’t.

Still, the Bolton Republican is the first to admit he has his work cut out for him.

“There is an uphill, narrow path to victory against Ed Markey,” Deaton said in an interview. “It’s definitely uphill, and it’s not very wide of a path.”

“But,” he added, “I do believe that if everyone who says that we need some change and balance in the state comes out to vote, then I have a shot. And if they stay home because they think their vote doesn’t matter, then I’ll lose.”

A Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll in June showed Markey up by 25 percentage points against Deaton. At the time, Markey was scrapping in the Democratic primary with Representative Seth Moulton, who, too, argued Markey spent too much time in Washington. The Malden Democrat nonetheless soundly defeated the younger man by reasserting his progressive bona fides, boosted by left-wing stalwarts Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Since then, Markey has downshifted his public-facing campaign, posting social media videos supporting Democrats in competitive states such as Michigan and Minnesota — without mentioning his own race.

Cam Charbonnier, his campaign manager, said Markey has agreed to appear at a WBZ-TV debate on Oct. 13 and framed Deaton as someone who “would be another vote for Trump’s MAGA agenda.” But the incumbent has largely ignored his GOP opponent and two other candidates, Joe Tache and Shiva Ayyadurai.

“We all thought the Red Sox were dead and buried in June, so miracles can happen,” Jon McHenry, a Republican pollster, said of Deaton’s chances. “But I have more faith in the Red Sox bullpen at this point than I do in Republicans pulling off a miracle in Massachusetts at the statewide level.”

Deaton said he didn’t intend to run a second time, but opted to because “Markey didn’t retire,” and he believed he could avoid an expensive primary battle. Last fall, Deaton gathered early support from Massachusetts Republican Party leaders, who cleared his path by endorsing him in November. Weeks later, he donated nearly $350,000 to the cash-strapped party.

“I’m scared to death of what this country and the world’s gonna look like when I’m gone,” Deaton said of why he’s trying again. “I want to be able to tell my daughters, ‘Look, I tried to make a difference.’”

A second run could mean some voters are already familiar with him. Running as a known commodity, said McHenry, the Republican pollster, could also help fellow Republicans down-ballot.

But Deaton faces some immediate disadvantages. During the 2024 cycle, he received more than $1.1 million in outside contributions. He raised $500,000 as of mid-August this cycle — a difference he’s attributed to Markey not inspiring as much backlash (and motivated donors) as Warren.

“He’s not afraid to criticize the administration, he’s not afraid to express himself as independent … so he’s controlling all the things he can,” said Colin Reed, a former aide to Scott Brown, the last Republican elected to the Senate from Massachusetts in 2010. “That one big thing he can’t control is these national winds.”

Deaton has acknowledged the personal toll of re-entering the political arena. He said he is regularly cast in derogatory terms: Those to his right call him a “traitor” or a “RINO piece of [expletive],” or Republican in name only. Those on the left cast him as a “MAGA” acolyte, only in less polite terms.

Deaton said he has never supported Trump for president: In 2016, he left his ballot blank. In 2020, he voted for Joe Biden. And in 2024, he “either left it blank or wrote in Charlie Baker.”

But he was “genuinely surprised at how many Republicans blanked me” in 2024, either because he doesn’t support Trump, or because they didn’t recognize Deaton.

He’s not alone in facing that gauntlet.

“When I ran, it was so frustrating because all the reporters wanted to do was stick a mic in your face and ask if you were voting for Trump,” said Beth Lindstrom, a Republican who competed to face Senator Elizabeth Warren in 2018. Geoff Diehl, a Trump-aligned candidate, ultimately won the primary nomination.

“It’s really hard to run for office,” Lindstrom said. “We should be thankful for people who are willing to.”

Deaton said this time, he’s told Trump supporters “there’s a way for me to validate why they voted the way they did without validating him.” For instance, Deaton supports securing the border and deregulating energy markets — positions that align with the Trump administration.

And he’s leaned into local issues popular with voters, such as supporting Democratic state Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s push to audit the state Legislature.

To Denis Doroshenko, the Agawam Republican Town Committee chair, Deaton “seems to be distancing himself from federal politics,” which, at times, “irks some of the more conservative voters.”

But “when you approach him today, he’s like, ‘Yes, I made mistakes. … Here’s how I’m going to do better. I don’t want to alienate my side of the aisle,’" Doroshenko said.

Deaton is taking his strategy of talking to everybody, all the time, statewide. He’s in the midst of a 19-part town hall series, sharing his story of growing up in Michigan, where he says his family relied on public assistance. The first in his family to graduate high school, Deaton later moved to Massachusetts to attend New England School of Law.

He’s hoping “people are ready for a more balanced approach and are willing to reject the extremes.”

Markey “stands on that stage as a Democrat,” Deaton told three dozen people at a converted Middleborough warehouse recently. “I stand on the stage as an American.”

Sandra Wright, a Plymouth County commissioner who attended the Middleborough event, said she left her 2024 Senate vote blank. Now, she has Deaton’s sign in her yard.

“You’ve just got a Democratic state, which is going to hell fast,” Wright said. “The only other move you can make is move out, which I’m looking to do especially if [Deaton] doesn’t get in.”

Yet even his supporters acknowledge he has long odds.

“He’s got a hard row to hoe here. It’s going to be very difficult — Markey’s ingrained,” Paul D., a 72-year-old unenrolled voter said in Middleborough, declining to share his last name because he was afraid to lose business for supporting Republicans.

“You come out here in spread-out suburbs, and there’s a lot of support for Republicans, but I don’t know if it could compete with the cities,” he said. “And that’s the age-old problem.”