By

Ed Kilgore,

political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015

Ed Markey wins again.

One of the big narratives of the 2026 midterm elections is that in Democratic primaries, young progressive insurgents are knocking off old centrist or Establishment politicians who are badly out of touch with the Zeitgeist and unable to appeal to an emerging electorate dominated by millennial and Gen-Z voters. They did not seem to get the memo in Massachusetts, where three boomer congresspeople survived serious challenges.