Government shutdown continues, Senate vote fails
The government remains closed over the weekend. Two Democrats and one independent voted to end the government shutdown, falling short of Republicans in a 54-44 vote.
WASHINGTON – State Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Massachettes, has announced that he will run for the U.S. Senate, challenging longtime incumbent Sen. Ed Markey for his seat.
Moulton’s challenge comes as young progressives seek to defeat Democratic elder statesmen in next year’s blue state primaries, arguing that veterans are not doing enough to fight President Donald Trump.
“We are in a crisis, and given what we learned from the last election, there is no way that Sen. Markey should run for another six-year term at age 80,” Moulton, 46, said in an Oct. 15 video clip announcing his candidacy. “Furthermore, I don’t believe that someone who has been in Congress for half a century is the right person to rise to this moment and win the future.”
Markey, 79, was first elected to Congress in 1976 and served in the House of Representatives until 2013. He won a special Senate election in 2013 and has served as a senator ever since.
Moulton, a military veteran who was first elected to Congress in 2014, argued in the video clip that Democrats are “clinging to the status quo” and “remaining stuck using the same old strategies.”
“If we don’t change course, the next generation will continue to pay the price,” he said.
In 2020, Markey faced a high-profile primary race against then-39-year-old younger Democratic former Rep. Joe Kennedy III. Markey won by about 10 percentage points.
