Markey, 80, Coasts Past Moulton in Massachusetts Primary

Senator Ed Markey defeated Representative Seth Moulton 65-35 in the Democratic Senate primary, defying the party's generational-change wave.

Senator Ed Markey, 80, won the Democratic Senate primary in Massachusetts on Tuesday, leading Representative Seth Moulton 65 percent to 35 percent with 81 percent of the vote counted, according to The Associated Press tally cited by Roll Call. He was not alone: Representative Stephen Lynch, 71, held off Patrick Roath 57-43 in the 8th District, while Representative Richard Neal, 77, led Jeromie Whalen 54-46 in the 1st District, per the AP. In the race to succeed Moulton, former Biden White House aide Dan Koh led the five-way 6th District field with roughly 41 percent, more than 10 points ahead of state Representative Tram Nguyen, Roll Call reports.

The sweep stands out because Democrats elsewhere have been ousting long-serving incumbents all year. Roll Call counts seven House Democrats who lost primary challenges in 2026, mostly to younger or more progressive rivals, including Representative John Larson, defeated by former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin in August. In June, 29-year-old Melat Kiros unseated nearly 30-year incumbent Diana DeGette in Colorado, according to Al Jazeera. Massachusetts reversed the pattern entirely: the common thread, Al Jazeera notes, was the durability of the incumbents, not ideology, since Markey ran from the left while Lynch and Neal beat younger challengers running to their left.

Moulton, 47, built his campaign on generational change and seized on a debate moment in which Markey gave a halting answer about whether he uses AI platforms like Claude or ChatGPT, which the congressman repurposed for a digital ad, Roll Call reports. But Markey, 33 years older, claimed the progressive mantle with endorsements from Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, and hammered Moulton over his 2024 comments questioning transgender girls' participation in girls' sports. Moulton apologized, telling an August debate audience that trans kids 'matter' and 'you're valued, and I will always have your back,' Al Jazeera reports.

Though the challengers lost, several races were tighter than usual. According to Al Jazeera, Patrick Roath outraised Lynch roughly $1.3 million to $910,000 and cut Lynch's lead from 26 points in a February poll to seven by the final stretch. Roll Call reports Neal's 54-46 margin was the closest primary of his near-four-decade career, despite a towering fundraising edge over Whalen, who ran a grassroots campaign from his canary-yellow Toyota cargo van. The New York Post adds that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee gave Markey's campaign a $62,000 boost in the race's final weeks.

In heavily Democratic Massachusetts, Tuesday's winners are heavily favored in November, meaning the primaries effectively determined much of the state's congressional delegation, Al Jazeera reports. Markey, who per Roll Call has pledged to serve one last term that would end when he is 86, will face Republican John Deaton, unopposed Tuesday and coming off a 2024 Senate loss to Elizabeth Warren by about 20 percentage points. The AP, via Scripps News, framed the primary as the most critical hurdle in the deep-blue state. The result also signals the limits of the generational-change argument even in a year it has worked elsewhere.

Markey now faces Deaton in November, with Democrats heavily favored across the state's districts; Koh, if he prevails as expected, would become the first Asian American to represent Massachusetts in Congress, according to Roll Call. Incumbent Democratic Governor Maura Healey, unopposed in her primary, will face businessman Mike Minogue, winner of the Republican primary, per the New York Post. November voters will also weigh a ballot initiative that would scrap the state's current primary system for a single all-party primary with the top two finishers advancing regardless of party, Fox News reports — meaning Tuesday's contest may have been among the last of its kind.