The NYT takes an extensive look at Kerry’s 1972 run for Congress, its parallels with the current run, and what lessons loss may have taught the candidate, here: John Kerry’s Journey: Echoes of a 1972 Loss Haunt a 2024 Campaign

It was the campaign that seemed to have everything. A rented mainframe computer and a sophisticated telephone voter list when typewriters and index cards were still common. A legion of eager volunteers, including a bike-riding boarding school student named Caroline Kennedy. Plenty of cash, celebrity supporters and a compelling first-time candidate: John Kerry.

But in the end, the 1972 Democratic campaign for Congress in the Fifth District of Massachusetts, stretching from the gritty old mill towns of Lawrence and Lowell to the upscale suburbs of Lexington and Concord, lacked one big thing: voters. Mr. Kerry lost to his Republican opponent in a district George McGovern carried, after a bitter battle in which his antiwar protests were attacked, his patriotism was questioned and he himself was derided as an elitist careerist. His political future seemed shattered before it began.