79 year-old Democrat running for reelection draws primary challenger three decades younger

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, a 79-year old Democrat who has served in Congress for nearly five decades, is facing a serious primary challenge in his bid to serve out another six-year term.

Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, 47, declared his 2026 candidacy for Markey’s seat on Wednesday, invoking the need for generational change and the need to avoid a repeat of former President Joe Biden, who was undone by his age during the 2024 election. Moulton’s bid for the reliably-blue seat is the latest high-profile primary contest that threatens to divide Democrats as the party plots a longshot bid to win back power during the midterms.

“We’re in a crisis. And with everything we’ve learned last election, I just don’t believe Sen. Markey should be running for another six-year term at 80 years old,” Moulton said in a three-minute long campaign announcement video. “Even more, I don’t think someone who’s been in Congress for half a century is the right person to meet this moment and win the future.”

“It’s time for a new generation of leadership,” Moulton added.

Moulton highlighted his support for traditional left-wing policy priorities in his announcement video, including universal health care and addressing climate change. He did not mention transgender issues in education and sports — which the six-term lawmaker briefly bucked his party on in the aftermath of Democrats’ election losses last November.

Moulton’s frank comments acknowledging biological reality in sports drew the ire of local left-wing activists and prompted a primary challenge from a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman and uses they/them pronouns.

He still voted against GOP-authored legislation seeking to ban biological males from women’s sports in January.

Moulton is a Marine veteran and has represented a deep blue district north of Boston since 2015.

Markey would be 86 at the end of another term in the upper chamber. Despite facing previous concerns about his age, the longtime lawmaker successfully vanquished then-Rep. Joe Kennedy III by roughly 150,000 votes in the state’s 2020 Democratic primary.

Markey has voted with Trump just 1 percent of the time, according to analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund released in September. He was the chief Senate sponsor of the Green New Deal, comprehensive legislation that would radically transform the economy and Americans’ way of life to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero over a decade.

Massachusetts is one of several states where Democrats are engaged in bitter and expensive primary fights.

In Maine, Democratic Governor Janet Mills, 77, will have to defeat a younger, more progressive opponent in order to advance to the general election to face incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Graham Platner, a 41 year-old oyster farmer beloved by the party’s left flank, is well funded, raising more than $3 million between July and September.

A three-way primary fight in Michigan has also pitted establishment Democrats against progressives, who believe they have wind in their sails with socialist Zohran Mamdani’s rapid rise in New York City.

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