Senator Ed Markey won his 2020 reelection thanks to the Markeyverse. Can he convince young people to support him again?
It's a disenchantment that applies to the 78-year-old senator Agarwal once championed. 'I probably wouldn't vote for him again because I think he's old and needs to go‚' Agarwal said of Markey. 'I want politicians who feel like they're fighting for something rather than letting the time pass them by. . . . I want Democrats to have a little bit of life in them.'
That attitude captures the potential challenge awaiting Markey as he mounts his reelection campaign at an extraordinary and chaotic political moment.
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During his last election, Markey beat back his youthful,
glamorous challenger by connecting with young progressives drawn to his
This skepticism extends to Markey. In the never-ending parlor game of Massachusetts politics, some party insiders whisper his age makes him vulnerable.
Private polls have reportedly circulated testing how Markey would fare in 2026 against younger Democrats such as Representatives Jake Auchincloss and Ayanna Pressley.
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Markey
praising him as
a still-vibrant warrior
But several young people who aided his last race said they don't believe Markey is the right fit as the party searches for fresh energy. It's a split that reflects
a broader divide among young voters Democrats must
navigate as they chart their political future.
'Voters are trying to find leadership in the party and find somebody who will stand up for the values Democrats care about and . . . all elected officials are struggling with that now, including Senator Markey,' said Doug Rubin, a Massachusetts Democratic consultant not involved in the race. 'Anybody running for office in the next two years on the Democratic side has to try to figure out, how do they understand where voters are and lead the Democratic party to a better place?'
In 2020, voters under 30 turned out in record numbers and supported Biden by more than 20 percentage points over Trump. Last year, far fewer young voters showed up, expressing broad dissatisfaction with both candidates. Many who did vote pivoted rightward due to the economy; Vice President Kamala Harris won young voters by just 4 percentage points,
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'The disillusionment with the system is at an all-time high with young people, and I don't think Democrats have honestly done enough to rebuild that trust,' said Jessica Siles with Voters of Tomorrow, a Gen Z advocacy group that
'For a lot of people, the damage has already been done,' Siles said. Among young people, there is a feeling of 'let's get new people in to rebuild that trust and be the candidates [we] want to see.'
Markey believes he is still that candidate.
'2024 showed us that we need to rebuild trust with young people. We need to listen to them and join them in the places where they are,' Markey said in a statement, pointing to issues such as affordability and climate action. 'That's what this moment demands, and that is who and what I am fighting for.'
Markey faced an uphill battle in 2020 as
the campaign online, which Markey's campaign was 'uniquely prepared for,' said its former digital director Paul Bologna.
Unhappy with
Biden, young progressives were looking for somewhere to channel their support. Markey's climate advocacy
'Young people were organically coming to us,' said Bologna, who now works for
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. He pointed to dozens of social media pages that promoted Markey, saying,
'It was very exciting and also gave us a lot of hope at a time when the country and the world was seemingly heading down the toilet.'
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In subsequent years, however, while some campaign fellows stayed in politics, other
campaign —
— criticized him after the war in Israel and Gaza began and rebranded to say they were 'holding him accountable.' Over 1,000 former supporters signed a page calling on Markey to support a cease-fire, which
To Emerson Toomey, who helped run 'edsreplyguys' while attending Northeastern University, 'a lot of people had very strong opinions about the Kennedy family, so it was kind of this perfect storm, lighting-in-a-bottle moment' in 2020.
Since then, Markey 'hasn't really been moving the needle on anything he's promised, and a lot of young people were disillusioned by working on the campaign and after the campaign,' said Toomey, now a graduate student at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. 'He's not going to have the same support that he had last time.'
Agarwal, for instance, moved away from politics after he said Markey's 2020 campaign told him they would pay him for
Markey has pushed ahead with a reelection bid even as some colleagues are bowing out. Two Democratic senators — Gary Peters of Michigan, 66, and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, 78 — announced they would not seek reelection next year. Shaheen's
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No one has mounted a serious challenge to Markey yet — though Auchincloss and Pressley, asked by reporters,
Still, taking on Markey would be challenging, local political strategists say, in a year expected to be a referendum on Trump. Several doubted a moderate Democrat could prevail in a deep-blue state where primary voters often tack left. And his defenders say age isn't everything: Young people have coalesced behind octogenarian politicians
In 2024, Biden's age 'became obviously a significant issue, and people could naturally think about whether their senator, representative, governor who was older was also maybe ready for retirement,' said Mark Horan, a former Markey adviser. 'That's been blown away by the gale-force winds of Donald Trump and Elon Musk — I just don't think people are noodling over that stuff right now.'
The Sunrise Movement, meanwhile, has stood by Markey despite criticizing other Democrats. Their political director, Stevie O'Hanlon, pointed to Markey's
'Markey understands that to stop Trump's agenda, we need to . . . build a grass-roots movement around the country, and that is really aligned with how young people are seeing this moment,' O'Hanlon said. 'There's a lot of frustration with politicians like Chuck Schumer who I think appear to many young people asleep at the wheel, and I don't think that's how people feel about Ed Markey.'
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Markey has also expanded outreach to young people by
In 2020, 'the argument against Senator Markey was based on generational status and age, and Kennedy lost that battle,' said Tatishe Nteta, a political scientist at UMass Amherst. 'I just don't see any of the sort-of-young Democrats in this state deciding to repeat the challenge Kennedy made.'
'But,' he added, 'you never know — ambition is a hell of a drug.'
Anjali Huynh can be reached at
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