Seth Moulton Sold Out Trans Kids — and Lost His Senate Race

Rep. Seth Moulton speaks during an election night event on Sept. 1, 2026, in Boston, after losing the Massachusetts’ Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. Photo: Reba Saldanha/AP

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey comfortably defeated Rep. Seth Moulton in his Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday, in what the media — and Moulton himself — had described as a “generational” challenge.

The framing is understandable: In a country suffering under gerontocratic rule, Markey is 80 and Moulton is 47.

Age, however, was the least of what was at stake in Moulton’s run from the decaying center of the Democratic Party. Moulton ran on a conservative line, recycling right-wing talking points and echoing Donald Trump to suggest, erroneously, that Democrats have been failing because they have not been conservative enough.

“There’s only 12 trans athletes in the whole of the NCAA. We should have been embracing them.”