The Massachusetts Democratic Party is taking steps to cancel the 2020 Nominating Convention, which had been scheduled for May 30 at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell.

Gus Bickford, the party chairman, said in a statement that he will recommend the party’s state committee cancel the convention. “Our duty to protect one another, to protect our friends, family, neighbors and strangers, requires that we all make changes to the way we live.”

Both campaigns for U.S. Congressman Joe Kennedy III and Sen. Edward Markey announced Monday night that the convention had been called off. Concerns over public safety with the coronavirus pandemic drove the decision.

According to a statement from the party, tweeted by Politico’s Stephanie Murray, both campaigns agreed that Markey would win the convention and that Kennedy would surpass the 15% threshold needed to get on the ballot.

“Upon adoption of this recommendation, the chair of the Party will send a letter to Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin, requesting that he place the names of both Senator Markey and Congressman Kennedy on the Democratic Primary ballot for the United States Senate,” the statement read.

The statement said the party had considered alternative ways to conduct the convention, but they presented challenges of their own. The committee is considering the recommendation at a virtual April 4 meeting and if it is adopted, 102 local caucuses that had not taken place yet will not be held.

“Mass Dems made the right call to cancel our convention,” Kennedy tweeted. The health and safety of everyone is priority #1."

“Both candidates fought hard and contested the caucuses,” Markey Campaign Manager John Walsh wrote in a statement. “The vast majority of the local selections were completed, and when the votes were counted before this decision, Ed Markey won the prized endorsement of the grassroots convention and the Democratic Party by winning over 70 percent of the delegates elected at the caucuses that were held across the state.”

The decision means both Markey and Kennedy will go on to face each other in the Sept. 1 state Democratic Primary.

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