Rep. Seth Moulton launches Senate bid against Ed Markey in Massachusetts
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., announced this morning that he will launch a bid for the Senate, challenging Sen. Ed Markey. Moulton’s bid marks the first high-level challenge to Markey, a Democrat who has served in Congress for nearly five decades.
“Real people across Massachusetts are hurting by Democratic leaders’ refusal to do everything they can to win,” he said in his advertising video. “We have to look in the mirror and be honest: it is time for change.”
Moulton, 46, cited age in his argument against the 79-year-old Markey. The age argument comes as Democrats continue to grapple with the fallout from former President Joe Biden’s failed campaign, with polls indicating voters widely view him as too old to run for a second term, ultimately leading to renewed conversations about generational change and aging politicians.
“We are in a crisis, and with everything we learned in the last election, I do not believe Senator Markey should run for another six-year term when he is 80 years old,” Moulton said in his announcement video. “More than that, 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.”
He added: “Senator Markey is a good man, but it is time for a new generation of leadership, and that is why I am running for US Senate.”
NBC News has reached out to Markey’s campaign for comment.
In Moulton’s announcement video, the congressman emphasized his support for universal health care, protecting democracy, and addressing climate change. He criticized President Donald Trump’s “harmful and racist agenda” and criticized his party, saying it had “clung to the status quo, insisted on using the same old playbook, and is not fighting hard enough.”
“The next generation will continue to pay the cost 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 environmental and energy proposals that he pushed as 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 coming to 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 of Representatives in 2024, winning nearly 98% of the vote.