Republican U.S. Senate challenger Jeff Beatty said Sunday that his campaign to defeat John Kerry is going exactly as planned.

In a telephone interview with PolitickerMA.com on the way to the first of three campaign events on Sunday, Beatty said he knew all along that they would have to make a move late in the race to close the gap with Kerry.

"This is exactly the way we knew the plan had to unfold," Beatty said, "that we were going to have to rise up in the last days of the campaign."

The most recent polls show Kerry holding a significant lead over Beatty heading into Election Day A 7News/Suffolk University poll at the end of October showed Kerry up by 37 percent.

Beatty said that he anticipated the press focusing on the presidential race for most of the campaign season. Now that his two debates with Kerry are behind him and his latest TV ad hitting the airwaves, Beatty said his message is gaining traction with voters.

"Our ads haven't even been up for a week yet, and we are rocketing up," Beatty said.

Beatty also noted his ad stands out among the countless political ads on TV right now because it is positive.

"Our ad has a positive message because we knew the airwaves would be filled with hateful ads," he said. "People have come up to me and said that our ad is the only one they remember because it's not like the cookie cutter attack ads that you see in the race in New Hampshire and elsewhere. It's just not."

Beatty was on his way to standing out with supporters carrying signs in Hyannis. He will also appear at a standout on Orleans and another at the Bourne rotary on Sunday. He plans to participate in some radio interviews Monday morning and then greet voters at South Station in Boston.

The Republican also criticized Kerry for campaigning for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama in New Hampshire on Saturday, and appearing as a surrogate for him on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday.

"He treats Massachusetts like a backup prom date; I'll go with you unless I can find something better," Beatty said. "It's an insult. It's an insult to the people of the Massachusetts to have him out there avoiding the question of whether he would join the Obama administration."

Check out the Kerry camp's response here.