Rep. Seth Moulton launches Senate bid against Ed Markey in Massachusetts
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., announced this morning that he is launching a Senate bid, challenging Sen. Ed Markey. Moulton’s candidacy marks the first high-profile challenge to Markey, a Democrat who has served in Congress for nearly five decades.
“Real people across Massachusetts are being hurt by Democratic leaders who refuse to do everything they can to win,” he said in his announcement video. “We need to look in the mirror and be honest: it’s time for change.”
Moulton, 46, cited age in his argument against the 79-year-old Markey. The age argument comes as Democrats continue to deal with the fallout from former President Joe Biden’s failed campaign, where polls indicated voters largely viewed him as too old to seek a second term, ultimately sparking new conversations about generational change and the aging of politicians.
“We are in a crisis, and with everything we learned in the last election, I simply do not believe that Senator Markey should run for another six-year term at age 80,” Moulton said in his announcement video. “More so, I don’t think someone who has been in Congress for half a century is the right person to meet this moment and win the future.”
“Senator Markey is a good man, but it’s time for a new generation of leaders, and that’s why I’m running for the United States Senate,” he added.
NBC News has reached out to Markey’s campaign for comment.
In Moulton’s announcement video, the congressman highlighted his support for universal health care, protecting democracy and fighting climate change. He blasted President Donald Trump’s “harmful and racist agenda” and chastised his own party, saying it was “clinging to the status quo, insisting on the same old playbook and not fighting hard enough.”
“The next generation will continue to pay the price if we don’t change course,” Moulton said. “This is not a fight we can put off for another six years.”
Markey is a champion of progressive policies such as the environmental and energy proposals he championed as a co-author of the Green New Deal. One of the longest-serving members of Congress, he began his career in the House of Representatives in 1977 and was sworn in as a senator in 2013.
Markey easily won re-election in 2020, receiving about two-thirds of the vote in the deep blue state.
Moulton, a former Marine Corps officer before joining Congress, was sworn in in 2015 and represents a district north of Boston. After failing to run for president in 2020, he ran unopposed for re-election to the House in 2024, winning nearly 98% of the vote.
