Copyright The New York Times
Five years ago, at the age of 74, Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts handily beat back a Democratic primary challenge from then-Representative Joe Kennedy III, harnessing the power of the ascendant young left to slay Camelot’s heir apparent. The drubbing helped Markey, a fixture of Congress who was first elected to the House in 1976, beat back local jokes that he was more devoted to Washington than Massachusetts, and burnish his image as a son of Malden and the sneaker-shod godfather of the Green New Deal. But that victory hasn’t scared off challengers in 2026. The unofficial starting gun of the midterms went off after the elections on Tuesday. And with it, a Democratic Party with an age problem showed its enthusiasm for candidates who count as young by the party’s standards: Zohran Mamdani, 34; Abigail Spanberger, 46; and Mikie Sherrill, 53. All over the country, up-and-coming Democrats are wondering if they’ll be next. The battle brewing in Massachusetts gives us a glimpse of the younger bucks’ game plan to take out the old guard — and why it might be easier said than done. ‘Is he too old?’ Markey, now 79, already has one high-profile challenger: Representative Seth Moulton, 47, a moderate Democrat who represents a craggy coastal stretch of northeast Massachusetts. He jumped into the race last month, deriding his party for sticking to the status quo and making an argument explicitly about age. “Every political consultant in the world will tell me not to say this, but when people ask, ‘Is he too old?’ I mean, the honest truth is, yes,” Moulton told me yesterday, before reeling off a list of Democrats whose age became a major liability. “We’ve got to learn the lessons of Joe Biden and Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Dianne Feinstein.” The state’s political class, though, is abuzz with talk of a different possible contender: Representative Ayanna Pressley, 51, of Boston. Pressley, like Markey, is a dyed-in-the-wool progressive, an ally of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Elizabeth Warren. She is a member of the so-called Squad, too, although her background as a congressional aide has made her more adept at playing the inside game than some other members of that group. Two people with knowledge of her deliberations told me she was considering entering the race, and just about everybody I spoke with in Boston told me she was calling around to talk it through. (Politico reported her interest in the race this week.) Both Moulton and Pressley made it to Congress by knocking off incumbents. In 2014, Moulton beat a Democrat who had been weakened by an offshore gambling scandal; in 2018, Pressley upset a well-liked, 10-term incumbent with the simple argument that “change can’t wait.” And they’re not the only candidates people are wondering about. A three-way race between Markey, Moulton and Pressley could be enticing for another ambitious young moderate, Representative Jake Auchincloss, 37. Auchincloss has said he does not plan to run, but he has not endorsed Markey and did not directly answer a question on a recent local news program about what he would do if Markey were to leave the race. A potentially messy field Several older incumbents have already announced plans to step aside next year — including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 85 — but a person briefed on Markey’s thinking said he planned to stay in the race. Warren, the state’s other senator, easily won re-election last year at the age of 75. And while the field is not set, this much is certain: In 2026, older candidates like Markey are going to be pressed by voters and by their opponents about why they are still running. That doesn’t mean, though, that it will be easy to beat him — particularly in Massachusetts, where an arcane set of nominating rules mean a statewide candidate needs to secure 15 percent of the state’s Democratic delegates to get on the ballot. That system has historically limited the field in big races, and it gives a longtime politician like Markey an obvious advantage. (He also led a poll of a three-way matchup taken in late October.) A Markey-Moulton-Pressley primary would be complicated. Because Pressley largely shares Markey’s politics, she would have to make an age-focused argument against an ideological ally with whom she frequently appears. She has a deep and devoted network of supporters in the Boston area, which she represents, and a growing national profile, but she would start with a light war chest. QUOTE OF THE DAY “This should never happen in America.” A federal judge admonished the Trump administration on Thursday for its decision to leave millions of families without aid. In a tense but brief hearing, John McConnell Jr., a U.S. District Court judge in Rhode Island, accused the president of politicizing the SNAP program, and gave the government a Friday deadline to allocate leftover federal money to fund SNAP in its entirety. Unwilling to back down, the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court to halt McConnell’s requirement, only to be denied. The legal battle up until now has left Americans like 61-year old Deana Pearson, a resident of Chouteau, Okla., without their usual SNAP payments. Pearson, who usually receives around $287, had just $1.18 left on Tuesday.
