BOSTON — Six years ago, Ed Markey defeated a congressman 35 years his junior and held his Senate seat. Tuesday night, he did it again.
The Massachusetts senator, who turned 80 in July, defeated Representative Seth Moulton in the Democratic primary, winning roughly two-thirds of the vote when the Associated Press called the race less than an hour after polls closed. The margin tracked the polling — a University of Massachusetts Amherst survey taken in August had Markey at 60 percent to Moulton’s 32 — and it settled two questions that had animated the race since Moulton entered it: whether an 80-year-old incumbent could outlast a well-funded 47-year-old challenger calling for change, and whether Democrats in a deep-blue state were willing to draw a line over transgender athletes in sports.
Markey told supporters the result belonged to young voters, calling it “a testament to the power of the progressive movement of our nation” — a movement, he said, “fueled by young people demanding more from their leaders.”
Moulton had framed his campaign around generational change, an argument that has cost a handful of House Democrats their seats in primaries across the country this year. Representative John Larson of Connecticut, who at 76 faced a similar challenge, lost his seat earlier this summer. Moulton was betting the same dynamic could deliver Massachusetts. It did not.
The race’s sharpest flashpoint was transgender athletes. Markey, the co-author of the Green New Deal resolution and a longtime supporter of progressive causes, staked out an unambiguous position: trans athletes should be allowed to compete. “Trans athletes should be able to play,” he said during the campaign. “That reflects Massachusetts and who we are.” Moulton pushed back in personal terms. “I have two little girls,” he said. “I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.” Massachusetts Democratic voters sided with Markey.
Moulton’s second line of attack concerned artificial intelligence. During one debate, he challenged Markey’s familiarity with AI tools specifically. “Senator, if you don’t even know what you’re using on your phone or your iPad, this is why we need a new generation of leaders to regulate these technologies.” Markey replied that understanding specific applications matters less than establishing appropriate industry guardrails — an answer that landed better with a progressive base skeptical of tech industry self-regulation than with moderates who saw it as evidence of stagnation.
The endorsements arrayed behind Markey told a story about where progressive power in the Democratic Party currently sits. Senator Bernie Sanders called Markey “one of the strongest progressive voices in the United States Senate.” Senators Elizabeth Warren — who also represents Massachusetts — and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both backed him. Youth Democratic organizations provided organizing energy. The coalition held, and held decisively.
Whether that coalition carries Markey through November is a separate question. He will face John Deaton, a Republican attorney, in the general election. Massachusetts has not sent a Republican to the Senate since 2013, and Deaton enters as a clear underdog in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a wide margin. Still, the 2026 environment — shaped by the Trump White House’s open ambivalence toward the midterms and with the government funding fight deferred past November — is not a normal one, and Markey’s margin for error is narrower than a two-thirds primary margin suggests.
The Massachusetts contest had attracted national attention since early summer. Through the warmer months, the Massachusetts Senate race drew scrutiny over unrelated federal matters involving a Justice Department memo that shadowed both candidates’ messaging. By primary night those complications had receded, and voters returned to the central questions.
Tuesday was also primary day for Moulton’s congressional seat. With Moulton vacating his House position for the Senate campaign, Democrat Dan Koh won the primary for Massachusetts’s 6th Congressional District and will be favored to hold it in November.
For Markey, Tuesday is his second primary victory against a generational challenge in six years. In 2020, Representative Joe Kennedy III made the same succession argument and lost to the same incumbent. As NPR reported, Markey offered Moulton a conciliatory call after the result came in, acknowledging a hard-fought campaign. That 2020 template did not discourage Moulton from running, and nothing in Tuesday’s result guarantees the generational argument will not be made again.
What this primary cannot answer is whether the coalition that rejected the succession argument twice is broad enough for a general election. Fox News noted that Markey went all-in on the transgender athletes issue in a state where the November electorate looks different from the Democratic primary one. The progressive bet paid off Tuesday. Whether it holds in the general is the question his victory leaves open.
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