Progressives thrilled after Ed Markey wins Massachusetts Senate primary

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Hasan Piker, a controversial Twitch streamer and far-left activist who has supported several challengers against moderate Democrats, celebrated the victory of Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in a primary contest that pitted the 80-year-old progressive stalwart against a far younger and more centrist candidate.

“It’s very clear that the Dem voters care more about policies and having a progressive represent them in the Senate than age! Another w for our movement!” Piker wrote on X after Markey defeated Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., who is 33 years his junior.

Markey defeated Moulton, who centered his campaign on generational change, by casting himself as the race’s true progressive. He repeatedly questioned Moulton’s progressive credentials while continuing to push for transgender rights, particularly in sports — a position many Democrats have shied away from.

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The position, which Republicans have used as a political rallying cry on the campaign trail and which Democrats have largely avoided as they push to flip both chambers of Congress, is one that Moulton argued played a major role in Democrats’ losses across the board in 2024.

“Trans athletes should be able to play,” Markey told The New York Times. “That reflects Massachusetts and who we are. And Seth Moulton does not.”

Markey has also supported aggressive legislation on climate change, a platform that helped win over even groups that center around younger audiences.

“VICTORY! Congratulations to Ed Markey on his victory in Massachusetts tonight. Sen. Markey has been a leading climate champion in the fight for a Green New Deal to create jobs and lower costs for working people,” the Sunrise Movement said in a statement to X.

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Sen. Ed Markey speaking at a protest outside U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in Washington, D.C.

The group describes itself as a “movement of young people fighting fascism to win a Green New Deal.”

David Axelrod, a top political consultant and former advisor to President Barack Obama, noted that Markey hadn’t always been a darling of the progressive left ahead of Tuesday’s election. He credited Markey’s pivot for his political longevity.

“[Ed Markey] was first elected to Congress 50 yrs ago as a social conservative, opposed to abortion rights and school busing,” Axelrod said in his own post to X.

“Now 80, he’s likely to sail in tonight’s primary in MA, despite his age, because, in his Golden Years, he’s grabbed on to the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, trans rights and other marquee priorities of the Left, undergirding himself against younger, more moderate challengers in very blue MA.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., also praised Markey’s win. Like Markey, Sanders, 84, continues to shape the progressive movement despite the decades between him and many of its younger candidates.

“Congratulations to Ed Markey on his landslide victory in the Democratic Massachusetts Senate primary. Ed knows that, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, Congress must take on the billionaires and fight for working families,” Sanders wrote.

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