Can Republicans win John Kerry's old Senate seat?

Rep. Ed Markey (D) and businessman Gabriel Gomez (R) handily won their respective primaries in Massachusetts on Tuesday. But as the veteran Democratic lawmaker and the Navy SEAL veteran prepare for a two-month dash to the June 25 special election to fill Secretary of State John Kerry's Senate seat, a third name is hanging over the race like a beacon of hope (for Gomez) or a warning signal (for Markey).

Will Gomez "be the next Scott Brown?" ask Martin Finucane and Michael Levenson in The Boston Globe — a question being posed by just about every political handicapper and operative in the country. Brown, a little-known GOP state lawmaker, won a 2010 special election for U.S. Senate in an upset over Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley (D). Republicans hope Gomez, a political neophyte with an attractive face and personal story, will be able to capture the same coalition of Republicans, independents, and conservative Democrats who pushed Brown to victory.

Markey starts out the favorite in a state where Democrats hold a strong voter-registration edge and the national Republican Party is pretty unpopular. But "Democrats have good reason to be worried," says Shoshana Weissmann at PolicyMic. About half of Massachusetts' registered voters are independents, and "Gomez has substantial appeal that transcends party." His parents are Colombian immigrants, so Gomez didn't learn English until kindergarten, and his résumé — Navy pilot and SEAL officer, Harvard MBA, millionaire private-equity investor — and socially moderate positions make him the kind of Republican "who can be elected with ease in a blue state." Just ask Scott Brown.

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Brown, of course, lost his bid to serve a full term last November. And as political forecaster Larry Sabato notes:

Democrats would have been better off choosing Markey's more conservative rival, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), says Aaron Goldstein at The American Spectator. And Gomez's enviable attributes — "handsome, youthful, Hispanic, and bilingual," plus private-sector success — make him "a viable candidate." Still, Gomez has very long odds:

Political "inexpertise can become a political boon, especially on the Republican side," says Charlie Pierce at Esquire. But "Gomez isn't quite the political naif that he's selling to the Commonwealth." In the 2012 election, he cut an ad for "the group of SEALs who accused the president of using the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed for crass political purposes." And he wrote a letter asking Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Mass.) to appoint him to the vacant Senate seat when Kerry resigned. "Guess what, Gabriel? You're a politician."

With Markey's 36 years in the House, though, this will fundamentally be "a classic outsider versus career politician race," The Cook Report's Jennifer Duffy tells Go Local Worcester. Gomez will work hard to convince voters that he's an independent voice, not a conservative Republican, and that Markey is a "creature of a dysfunctional Congress." Markey will tout his accomplishments and argue that Gomez is "an ideological chameleon, and thus cannot be trusted." All things considered, Gomez is the underdog, and "I don't intend to change the rating from where it is now — Solid Democrat."

In hindsight, "Scott Brown's win was like lightning in a bottle," a mixture of a backlash against Democrats and ObamaCare plus damaging gaffes by the Democrat, Coakley, says Jessica Taylor at MSNBC. But it's not all bad news for Republicans.