After the result, Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, said the outcome sent a clear message. “Tonight, anti-trans politics lost,” Hack said. “Massachusetts rejected the idea that attacking transgender people is a shortcut to political power.”
By Alexander Rivera | September 2, 2026
Massachusetts Democrats delivered a decisive rejection of Rep. Seth Moulton’s bid for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, renominating Sen. Ed Markey after a campaign in which Moulton’s attacks on transgender athletes became one of the race’s defining flash points.
The contest was not close. Markey received 556,865 votes, or 64.88 percent, while Moulton received 301,372 votes, or 35.12 percent, according to Decision Desk HQ. With 91 percent of the estimated vote reported Wednesday morning, Markey held a lead of 255,493 votes, a margin of nearly 30 points.
Moulton, 47, framed his campaign as a challenge to Markey, 80, arguing that Democrats needed fresher leadership and a different political style. But the race ultimately became less about age than about ideology, and whether a Democrat could win by moving rightward on transgender issues while still claiming progressive credentials.
Markey ran openly in defense of transgender people. Moulton, by contrast, spent much of the campaign explaining comments he made after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election and Democrats began searching for a response to anti-trans attacks.
In a New York Times interview, Moulton said he did not want his daughters “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.” The line echoed a familiar right-wing argument that transgender girls are not girls but dangerous male intruders in women’s and girls’ spaces.
In a later exclusive interview with The Advocate, Moulton said his intentions were protective and argued that Republicans had run “hateful but effective ads,” warning that Democrats risked ceding the issue if they refused to engage.
His voting record, however, did not align neatly with his rhetoric. Moulton voted against a Republican bill banning transgender students from girls’ and women’s sports. He supported the Equality Act and the Transgender Bill of Rights. He also helped lead a bipartisan effort to preserve the LGBTQ+ youth service within the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
That contradiction dogged him throughout the Senate race. At Boston’s No Kings rally in October 2025, Moulton was booed. Markey appeared draped in a transgender Pride flag and drew applause when he said, “trans rights are human rights.”
By August, Moulton was attempting a more direct apology. “I deeply recognize your trauma, and I’m sorry if my comments hurt you,” he said, before reciting his LGBTQ+ record. Markey responded that Moulton had taken Donald Trump’s playbook and thrown transgender children “under the political bus.”
The Associated Press identified transgender rights as perhaps the campaign’s defining issue. Moulton also criticized Markey’s age, his knowledge of artificial intelligence and his decades in Washington, but those lines of attack did not overcome the damage created by his reversal on transgender athletes.
After the result, Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, said the outcome sent a clear message. “Tonight, anti-trans politics lost,” Hack said. “Massachusetts rejected the idea that attacking transgender people is a shortcut to political power.”
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, one of Markey’s prominent surrogates, said the state had chosen a senator who “gives a damn” and has “never wavered in his commitment to workers and families.”
“With Trump and Republicans moving with malice and enacting widespread harm, Massachusetts sent a clear message: We want Democrats who will defend our communities and never back down,” Pressley said in a statement.
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson also pointed to Markey’s consistency. “He knows why equality matters,” Robinson said in a statement from HRC’s political action committee. “He’s stood with us no matter what.”
At Markey’s victory celebration, Hack said the race carried a broader warning for Democrats. “We don’t accept a younger politician with older politics,” Hack said. “Equality cannot be something Democrats believe in only when it is easy. Civil rights cannot depend on a focus group.”
Moulton conceded on Tuesday night and said he would support Markey in November against Republican John Deaton. “We didn’t achieve our goal tonight, but I am confident others will be inspired to buck the system when they’re told to wait their turn,” Moulton told supporters.
Moulton gave up his House seat to seek the Senate, and his defeat is expected to end his congressional career in January.
