Aug. 31, 2026, 5:18 p.m.
Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts is experiencing déjà vu in Tuesday’s primary. In what he says will be his final reelection campaign, the progressive Democrat faces another unconventional challenge from a House member who's pitching a simple message of generational change to Democratic primary voters.
After Markey dispatched Rep. Joe Kennedy III by double-digits six years ago, Rep. Seth Moulton, a pragmatic, 47-year-old lawmaker, is making a similar argument that it’s time voters give the octogenarian the boot. Yet between Markey’s two campaigns was former President Biden’s ignominious exit from the 2024 election amid age concerns, forcing Democrats to confront a gerontocracy in Congress.
“The fact of the matter is at a certain point enough is enough,” former New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang, a Moulton supporter, told National Journal. “Let’s open this thing up for new ideas, new people, new energy, and go. And I have no doubt that Markey can be a tremendous help and service to the country and to the state as a private citizen who’s a former public servant for 50 years now.”
First elected to Congress in 1976, Markey is attempting to persuade voters that he’s fit to serve through his early 80s. During the Democrats’ second debate, Markey pledged that he’d step down if he could no longer effectively serve in his senatorial post.
“Any public official should step down if they cannot serve,” Markey said during the Aug. 3 debate. “That is a responsibility. It’s not a public service over self-service.”
The senator is digging back into his 2020 playbook as he faces Moulton, portraying himself as more progressive than his challenger. Markey is hammering Moulton for backing a GOP-led resolution that expressed gratitude for Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel while denouncing antisemitism—the same criticism that helped Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan against Rep. Angie Craig in the Minnesota Senate primary. The senator is also drawing attention to Moulton’s critical comments about transgender athletes in girls’ sports to The New York Times following the 2024 election. Moulton has since walked back and apologized for those comments.
“He just took the whole playbook of MAGA and Trump, and he blamed those kids for the loss,” Markey said during the debate. “He threw them under the political bus.”
Moulton’s political career has seen a series of challenges to his party’s older leaders. In 2014, the Marine veteran unseated nine-term Rep. John Tierney in the Democratic primary amid a family gambling scandal. After his party regained control of the House in 2018, Moulton initially led an effort to oppose Rep. Nancy Pelosi's bid to again become speaker. A few months later, Moulton jumped into the 2020 presidential race as a younger option for the Oval Office; he’d drop out four months later, but he had placed himself briefly on the national radar.
The congressman was also the sole member of the state’s all-Democratic congressional delegation to call for Biden to exit the 2024 race after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump.
“There just comes a time to pass the torch to the next generation, and there’s no better time for that than now,” Moulton said during his closing statement at the debate. “If you’re happy with the status quo, then vote for the senator.”
Several older Democratic members of Congress lost their primaries to younger competitors this year, including Reps. Diana DeGette of Colorado, John Larson of Connecticut, Shri Thanedar of Michigan, Adriano Espaillat of New York, and Al Green of Texas. Sen. John Hickenlooper, 74, narrowly won renomination in Colorado by less than 6 points against state Sen. Julie Gonzales, 43.
Despite his youth, Moulton is still in an uphill battle against Markey, who’s leaning on endorsements from national progressives—such as Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—and some of Massachusetts’ most prominent Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. Sanders and Pressley notably didn’t intervene during the 2020 primary, underscoring the starker ideological divide in this year’s contest.
Markey is emphasizing his support from Pressley, a Boston-based progressive who was touted as a potentially strong challenger to the senator. Markey held a joint rally on Saturday with his progressive pals in Dorchester, a racially diverse Boston neighborhood that Kennedy handily won in 2020. He’ll hold another rally with Pressley and Wu in Boston’s South End on Monday night.
“A large share of people who would have thought that Ed should retire only wanted Ed to retire if it meant that they got to vote for Ayanna,” said Jonathan Cohn, policy director for Progressive Mass, which is backing Markey for reelection.
Apart from their campaigns against Markey, Moulton and Kennedy aren’t exactly the same. Kennedy was a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, whereas Moulton belongs to the center-left New Democrat Coalition. Kennedy was excoriated for backing Medicare for All too late, while Moulton supports a national public option instead. Kennedy’s old 4th District bordered Rhode Island in southeastern Massachusetts while Moulton’s 6th District borders New Hampshire in the northeastern part of the state.
Fall River Democratic City Committee Chair Nadia Paquette supported Kennedy in 2020. Paquette told National Journal that she voted early for Markey this time around, arguing that Moulton’s generational-change message didn’t convince her to vote against the incumbent.
“That’s age discrimination in my book, No. 1,” Paquette said. “No. 2, don’t you think he’s been reelected so many times because of all the progress he’s been doing?”
Moulton isn’t guaranteed Kennedy’s coalition, either. The former congressman carried roughly 45 percent of the 2020 primary vote by amassing support among Black voters and running up the score in the South Coast.
“It appears that it was a little bit more exciting with Kennedy in the race because, as it relates to this area, he represented this area in Congress,” said Frank Baptista, the owner of Portuguese-language radio station Radio Voz do Emigrante in Fall River. “But this time, chattering is a little less.”
Polling is painting a rosier picture for Markey. Nonpartisan surveys from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Suffolk University, the University of New Hampshire, and Emerson College this month show the incumbent ahead of Moulton by double digits, a notable improvement from earlier in the cycle. Markey also carries formidable strength among younger voters, an essential element of his winning coalition in 2020.
Moulton’s allies are pointing to polling misses in other Democratic primaries this cycle, including the Michigan Senate contest and the Wisconsin governor’s race, as well as the 2020 race’s organizing challenges amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think the big difference is COVID. This isn’t really fair to Joe, but Seth isn’t trying to beat Markey on Markey’s turf,” said one Democratic strategist experienced in Massachusetts campaigns. “[Kennedy] had to play on Markey’s turf, which is the internet. Without Seth trying to play into the online BS, Markey’s entire strategy kind of falls apart.”
Moulton holds his own advantages heading into Tuesday. The congressman has outraised the senator over the past few quarters. The Boston Globe’s editorial board, which backed Markey during his 2020 reelection, has endorsed Moulton this cycle. Moulton-aligned ad spending is outpacing Markey-aligned ad support, $8.9 million to $4 million, according to the nonpartisan ad-tracking firm AdImpact. During the 2020 primary, Kennedy-allied buys outpaced Markey-allied spends, $9.3 million to $6.5 million.
Moulton’s campaign and the pro-Moulton MA Advance Progress both aired TV ads last week that highlighted the senator’s clunky response to a question about his AI usage on his iPad during their third debate. Markey said in his response, “I don't know what—what companies, uh, my iPad might be using.”
Markey’s reelection prospects—as in 2020—have improved over the course of the cycle, but the octogenarian's age and decades-long tenure in an unpopular Congress are again forcing Bay State Democrats to choose between newer leadership or ideological purity.
