OMITTED

What the news leaves out.

← Omitted front page

Ed Markey Defeats Seth Moulton in Massachusetts Democratic Senate Primary

30 sources · updated 2026-09-03
Left 56% Center 17% Right 28%
10 left · 3 center · 5 right

What happened

On September 2, 2026, Massachusetts Democratic primary voters nominated U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, 80, over U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, 47, for another Senate term. The Associated Press projected Markey the winner about half an hour after polls closed; with most of the expected vote counted he was winning roughly two-thirds of the ballots. Markey, first elected to the House in 1976 and to the Senate in 2013, had also defeated a younger primary rival, then-Rep. Joe Kennedy III, in 2020. Moulton, a Marine Corps veteran first elected to the House in 2014, centered his campaign on generational change, while Markey ran on a progressive record that included co-authoring the Green New Deal and backing Medicare for All. Moulton conceded Tuesday night and pledged to support Markey against Republican John Deaton in November in a state that has not elected a Republican senator since 2013.
Omitted — what each side leaves out

Unpacked

Right-leaning coverage never reports that Moulton's campaign and allies held the advertising advantage, so the result reads as an incumbent machine beating youth rather than a progressive who was outspent. NBC News places Moulton's side at $7.1 million in ads and treats the win as a progressive beating well-funded attacks. The Daily Caller instead frames a rare victory for the "old-guard incumbents," with no spending figures at all. Fox News leads the same race with Markey "going all-in on trans athletes." Left-leaning coverage, including the Guardian, folds that dispute into Moulton's comments and a later apology, not as the incumbent's central pitch. How many Tuesday voters named sports, age, or climate policy as the reason they voted?
Bottom line

You could read Fox News on Markey's win for the old guard and never learn that Moulton's side spent $7.1 million on ads and still lost.

The receipts — 6 facts one side's coverage lacks
  • Moulton and allies spent $7.1 million on ads versus $3.9 million for Markey and allies numberin NBC News · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • Boston Globe editorial board endorsed Moulton, saying voters should not back someone they might have to worry about finishing the term contextin Slate · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • Markey and Moulton agree on abolishing ICE contextin ABC News · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • Markey said trans athletes should be able to play official statementin Fox News · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • Suffolk/Globe poll: only a third of primary voters said Markey's age made them less likely to support him numberin Slate · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • David Axelrod said Markey was first elected to Congress as a social conservative opposed to abortion rights and school busing contextin Fox News · absent from left-leaning coverage
The Left View
Left-leaning outlets framed the result as Massachusetts Democrats choosing progressive policy over youth. NBC News called it "a victory for the party’s progressive wing," noting Markey overcame a nearly 2-to-1 advertising disadvantage (about $7.1 million spent by Moulton and allies versus $3.9 million on Markey’s side, according to AdImpact). The Atlantic wrote that "in a race that pitted ideology against age, Massachusetts Democrats opted for a progressive stalwart." Slate cited a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll in which only a third of primary voters said Markey’s age made them less likely to support him, and quoted Markey: "it’s not your age, it is the age of your ideas." Coverage stressed endorsements from Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Markey’s charge that Moulton "threw trans kids under the bus" after Moulton said following the 2024 presidential election that he did not want his daughters "getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete." The Guardian noted the contest reversed a 2026 pattern in which younger progressives had unseated older Democratic incumbents elsewhere.
The Right View
Right-leaning outlets treated the outcome as a rare holdout for Democrats’ "old guard" and emphasized Markey’s age and positions on gender and immigration. The Daily Caller called it a "rare win for the old guard" after younger Democrats had defeated older incumbents elsewhere in 2026, noting Markey has held elected office since 1973 — "five years before Moulton was born" — and supports abolishing ICE and "irreversible procedures for trans-identifying minors." Fox News headlined that an "80-year-old Dem" won "after going all-in on trans athletes," quoting Markey telling The New York Times, "Trans athletes should be able to play," and describing him as "one of the only Democrats stumping for transgender rights" this cycle. Fox also quoted former Obama adviser David Axelrod that Markey was first elected "as a social conservative, opposed to abortion rights and school busing" and had in "his Golden Years" "grabbed on to the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, trans rights." The Washington Examiner and Fox both stressed the seat is "solidly blue" and "all but certain" to stay Democratic in November; coverage also highlighted far-left celebration, including Twitch streamer Hasan Piker’s "Another w for our movement!"
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is that voters ranked ideology above chronology: Markey won in a landslide despite being outspent nearly 2-to-1 and despite a national argument, after Joe Biden’s failed 2024 reelection bid, that Democrats must retire aging leaders — and a Suffolk/Globe poll found only a third of primary voters less likely to back him because of age. The right’s strongest argument is that a noncompetitive, deep-blue primary rewarded an incumbent who will be 86 at term’s end and who, unlike most Democrats after 2024, openly defended transgender athletes in women’s sports and called for abolishing ICE — a result that does not test those positions with swing voters. The central unresolved tension is whether that preference shows that "the age of your ideas" outweighs biological age, or that the party’s safest voters will not enforce the generational and cultural reset debated since 2024.

30 sources

More stories

The week's bottom lines, in your inbox

One email a week: the five stories that mattered and what they actually mean. Free.