Seth Moulton did not lose the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate because Massachusetts voters were afraid of generational change. He lost because he offered voters little beyond his own desire to advance.
With nearly 96% of the vote reported, 80-year-old U.S. Sen. Ed Markey defeated the 47-year-old congressman by approximately 65% to 35%, a margin approaching 30 percentage points and 256,000 votes. Moulton got his butt summarily kicked out of the stratosphere of Massachusetts-somebodies into the land of wannabe-nobodies. Now that he cannot retreat to his congressional seat like a foxhole, he will likely resurface as a lobbyist.
While forging his career path, there must have been a point when Moulton thought long and hard and concluded that he wanted to become famous while doing something meaningful, so he chose politics. Well, that was obviously the wrong career choice. The only thing Moulton wanted was the visibility, prestige and upward mobility of politics, but he never appeared genuinely interested in the routine human interaction that public service requires.
Politics is not merely delivering speeches, collecting impressive titles or appearing on television. It means listening patiently to people who may be nervous, awkward, repetitive, poorly informed or unable to offer anything in return. It means treating every constituent as though their participation matters—even if they are a slithering nobody who plans on stabbing you in the back.
That is not an optional part of the profession. A politician does not get to demand admiration from the public while treating ordinary people as inconveniences. The people who possess no money, influence or useful connections are precisely the people an elected official is supposed to serve (or shake hands with and exchange a few pleasantries with before dillydallying off to their mansion).
Moulton’s career has repeatedly appeared organized around reaching the next stage. After entering Congress in 2015, he helped lead an unsuccessful effort to prevent Nancy Pelosi from becoming House speaker. He then launched a presidential campaign in 2019 but failed to meet the polling or fundraising requirements for the first Democratic debate.
Now, after representing the 6th Congressional District, he sought promotion to the Senate by arguing that Markey was simply too old to remain there.
There’s nothing wrong with being an egomaniacal narcissist seeking office, it’s almost a given, I mean look at the president. But ambition must be attached to a coherent purpose, a modicum of authenticity, a record voters value and a convincing explanation of why the candidate deserves greater authority. Moulton seemed to believe that being younger than Markey was enough.
It wasn’t enough. Youth is a biological condition, not a political platform. And while youth may be used to elevate and destroy women of all stripes, it certainly doesn’t work on men in politics.
Take Markey, for instance. He went from being one of the youngest elected officials in Massachusetts to one of the oldest. At 26, he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and at 30, he entered Congress. After serving 37 years in the U.S. House, he was elected to the Senate in 2013 and turned 80 this year.
How did he do this?
Well, Markey, the savvy son of a milk man, goes everywhere in the state and charms every jerk in the room with the vigor of a delusionally ambitious 25-year-old man — even places like Worcester, where Till Lindemann, the lead singer of Rammstein, dropped his pants during a performance at the Palladium in 1999 and got himself arrested, most likely because he didn’t want to perform there again.
Moulton was the opposite. Lacking the requisite acting skill required of a successful politician, Moulton couldn’t hide his misanthropic attitude when attending public events, would ignore potential voters he thought were nobodies and flip flopped his platform to fit his needs until he lost all credibility entirely. For instance, Moulton voted for the Equality Act in 2021 and cosponsored the Transgender Bill of Rights in 2022 and 2023. Following the 2024 presidential election, he publicly opposed transgender girls competing in girls’ sports and defended remarks that produced significant backlash from LGBTQ advocates and members of his own community.
Politicians may sincerely reconsider political positions, but trust requires explaining what changed and why. Moulton’s shifts often looked less like principled evolution than attempts to locate the politically advantageous position of the moment.
Moulton’s age-based argument that became the basis of his most recent ad campaign also misread the electorate. A University of Massachusetts Amherst/WCVB poll conducted shortly before the primary showed Markey leading in every age category, not only among older voters. Markey led Moulton 53% to 22% among voters ages 18 to 29, 67% to 23% among those ages 30 to 54, and 58% to 36% among voters older than 55.
Moulton’s campaign was therefore not merely ineffective; it was discouraging. It told older people that accumulated experience eventually becomes a liability regardless of performance. It also patronized younger voters by assuming they would support a candidate primarily because he was younger.
They did not.
His finances also deserved more scrutiny than his campaign’s fixation on Markey’s age. Moulton’s 2025 disclosure listed household assets valued between approximately $4.5 million and $21.7 million. His family reported about $955,000 in salary income that year: $172,045 from his congressional salary and approximately $782,824 earned by his wife, an executive at Elevate Sports Ventures.
His disclosures also included millions of dollars in investments connected to defense-related companies while he served on the House Armed Services Committee. His representative said those assets were being placed into a blind trust. That does not prove insider trading, and I will not pretend that it does. It does, however, raise legitimate questions about conflicts of interest and the financial distance between Moulton and many of the people he represented.
Moulton’s military service—including four tours in Iraq and decorations for heroism—deserves respect. But courage in war does not automatically produce the temperament, humility or judgment required for democratic leadership. No résumé should function as a lifetime exemption from scrutiny.
Ultimately, Moulton seemed to mistake credentials for entitlement and visibility for accomplishment. He had the elite education, military biography, congressional title, national interviews and access to substantial money. What he lacked was a persuasive reason that Massachusetts voters should trust him more than Markey.
Markey offered ideological consistency, a lengthy record and strong relationships with the voters and organizations that dominate Democratic primary politics in Massachusetts. Moulton offered a complaint about Markey’s birth certificate.
The voters answered decisively.
Moulton wanted Massachusetts to believe that his relative youth entitled him to the next office. Instead, the primary demonstrated that advancement in politics is not supposed to be awarded for wanting it badly enough.
Public service is a people business. It requires patience with ordinary constituents just as much as confidence before television cameras. It requires treating voters as human beings rather than an audience assembled to witness your rise.
Moulton may have wanted fame. Massachusetts voters were looking for a senator.
