Soon-to-be-former U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Massachusetts, comes out of Tuesday’s election with a humiliating trouncing by Ed Markey, the state’s junior U.S. senator.
The Hill called the primary race with less than 4 percent of the vote counted a half hour after the polls closed when Markey was beating Moulton by an astonishing 40 points
Markey, 80, proved his liberal popularity with Massachusetts’ Democratic base, sweeping to an overwhelming victory.
Moulton, 47, a five-term congressman, spent the entire campaign talking about how old Markey is.
None of his vacuous trash talk stuck.
Markey, seeking a third term in the upper chamber, served two decades previously in the U.S. House.
The veteran Malden lawmaker refused to play in to Moulton’s age accusations, at one point saying his younger opponent couldn’t keep up with him on the campaign trail.
Moulton, a brash former Marine captain from Marblehead who has tried to unseat his boss, the House speaker, as well as President Biden in a failed presidential bid, was devoid of issues beyond complaining about Markey being elderly.
The one time he had a chance to grab the reins of Massachusetts liberalism he dropped the ball, poking fun at “transgendered” adolescent athletes.
It gave Markey an opening to blast Moulton as insensitive to the LGBTQ wing of the party, a line of attack that played well with Bay State Democrats.
Markey’s victory comes six years after he handily fended off a primary challenge from U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, marking the first time a Kennedy lost a statewide race in Massachusetts, according to The Hill’s Julia Mueller.
In a scripted concession speech containing as much originality as his campaign, Moulton defiantly refused to apologize for trying and failing – now a third time – to challenge incumbents.
“I hope others will be inspired to buck the system when they’re told to wait their turn,” he asserted, trying justify jumping his party’s turnstile yet again.
Hard to fathom what inspiration he’s referring to since three times now his own party has refused him a promotion.
Markey now goes on to the general election against the GOP’s John Deaton, 59, a virtual unknown trial attorney, all-but ensuring the Democrat another term and possibly helping flip the Senate to a blue-party majority.
