Veteran progressive senator Ed Markey has won the Democratic primary in Massachusetts, comfortably defeating congressman Seth Moulton, who had argued the 80-year-old incumbent was too old to govern effectively. Moulton, 47, sought to capitalise on Democratic anxieties about ageing lawmakers — heightened after Joe Biden's troubled 2024 re-election campaign — but voters backed Markey, a longtime champion of single-payer healthcare and the Green New Deal who held endorsements from senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Markey is now the strong favourite to win a third full Senate term in November's general election against Republican nominee John Deaton, in the heavily Democratic state.