Joe Kennedy III, 45, is the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy.
In 2020, Kennedy, who attended Stanford University for his undergrad and Harvard Law School, lost the senate primary against Ed Markey, becoming the first Kennedy to lose an election in Massachusetts history.
Still, he’d go on to serve as a United States representative for Massachusetts from 2013 to 2021 and he held the position of United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland from 2022 to 2024.
Kennedy first came to national attention in 2018 when he gave the Democratic Party’s response to former President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.
Kennedy served on the House Energy and Commerce Committee while representing Massachusetts’s 4th congressional district.
He supported Democratic efforts like the Green New Deal and protection for Dreamers and immigrants under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program.
He’s also spoken out in favor of gun control. After a 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Kennedy said during an appearance on The View, “We’re not doing enough … I can’t even tell you how many times we have uttered our thoughts and prayers to the victims and survivors of gun violence, and thoughts aren’t doing it.”
In December 2012, he married Lauren Birchfield, a fellow Harvard-educated lawyer. The pair met in a Harvard Law School class taught by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and they now live in Newton, Massachusetts, with their two young children, CBS reported.
His twin brother, Matthew Rauch Kennedy, has stayed more out of the public eye, opting to study business instead, CNN reported.
