“Wow, it’s almost like 97% of incumbents win re-election to Congress or something.” FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver was clearly reaching for snark, but his reaction to the news of Ed Markey’s victory in the Massachusetts Senate primary last night captured what could well become the retroactive pundit consensus on the race.

Markey, in this telling, simply followed the trajectory enjoyed by many sitting lawmakers and swatted down a challenge that was never likely to succeed in the first place. The truth is, this was not a typical race and Markey’s victory over Joe Kennedy III — which looks set to be a rout of around ten or eleven points — was anything but inevitable.

For one thing, polling since last summer frequently suggested Kennedy would win. A survey conducted just after Labor Day 2019, for example, found him ahead by fourteen points — the incumbent trailing in most polls until just a few months ago. As recently as May, Emerson College found Kennedy leading by a margin of sixteen. And while we don’t yet have a complete picture of fundraising throughout the race, we do know that Kennedy brought in more money in its early stage, eclipsing Markey’s total in the final quarter of 2019 by a million dollars.