New UMass poll shows Markey with firm lead over Moulton

Local News

If other potential candidates like Rep. Ayanna Pressley were to enter the race, Sen. Ed Markey’s reelection campaign could get a lot more difficult.

Rep. Seth Moulton’s decision to challenge Sen. Ed Markey in next year’s Democratic primary has generated plenty of headlines and considerable buzz among political observers in the weeks since he announced his campaign. However, new polling results released Monday show that Moulton still has plenty of ground to make up in his first statewide race. 

About 51% of likely Democratic primary voters favor Markey, compared to just 28% who would vote for Moulton if the election were held now, according to a new UMass Amherst/WCVB poll. 

Those figures only apply to a race with the three candidates who have announced their campaigns so far: Markey, Moulton, and former teacher Alex Rikleen. The landscape of the race would get more complicated if Rep. Ayanna Pressley was to throw her hat into the ring. 

In a potential race with those four candidates, Markey leads with 35%, compared to 25% for Moulton and 21% for Pressley. The progressive congresswoman from Boston is more ideologically aligned with Markey, compared to Moulton’s more center-left views. Pressley has not made any public indication about her 2026 plans. 

Markey would be 80 before starting another six-year term, and he has served in Congress since 1976. In the wake of Joe Biden’s disastrous reelection campaign last year, debates are raging within the Democratic Party about the need for a younger generation of leaders. Moulton is attempting to tap into this discontent. 

“I don’t think someone who’s been in Congress for half a century is the right person to meet this moment and win the future,” he said in his campaign launch video. 

Voters were asked to describe Markey in one word, and “old” was the clear winner, according to the UMass poll. For Moulton, the most common descriptor was “unknown.”

Although Markey currently leads Moulton, the poll results show reasons for concern among Markey’s team, according to Alexander Theodoridis, co-director of the poll. 

“The Democratic primary is an eternity away in political time and Reps. Moulton and Ayanna Pressley, neither of whom has run statewide, seem to draw non-trivial chunks of the Democratic vote. And meaningful numbers of Democrats remain undecided,” Theodoridis said in a statement. 

Markey has shown no reservations about seeking another term and is adamant that he will be up to the job. Still, pollsters asked voters who they would support in an open primary if Markey were to leave the race. Results show that 29% of respondents would favor Moulton, 24% would support Pressley, 19% would support Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and 11% would support former Rep. Joseph Kennedy III. 

Wu is set to officially secure her second term this week and has shown no signs of seeking a seat in Congress. Kennedy, who lost to Markey in 2020, has recently been critical of Democratic leaders and is working to push back against Republicans in the deep south. 

“Five years later, the coalition that delivered Markey his victory [over Kennedy] remains firmly in his camp with a plurality of young voters and a majority of liberals and highly educated voters expressing their intention to vote for Markey. As he faces yet another challenge from within his own party, Markey will need to continue to shore up his support from this base of energized voters,” Tatishe Nteta, the director of the UMass poll, said in a statement. 

Markey currently has a 54% approval rating, up from 51% in February, according to the poll. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who won reelection last year, has a 57% approval rating. 

The poll also asked voters about a number of topics related to how elections are administered in Massachusetts. It found that 66% of voters support making Election Day a state holiday, 65% support same-day voter registration, and 62% support the idea of requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification before casting their ballots.