The Lexington Observer interviewed U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass, who is running against Sen. Ed Markey, for the Democratic nomination in the race for US Senate. Reporters from the Cambridge Day, Brookline.News, Waltham Times, and Belmont Voice were in attendance and contributed to this reporting. We reached out to Markey’s team to speak with him for a future article.
U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass, is challenging incumbent Sen. Ed Markey for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator representing Massachuetts this fall.
A Marblehead resident, Moulton, 47, represents the Commonwealth’s’ Sixth Congressional District (the North Shore), in Congress. He was first elected to Congress in 2014 when he beat Democratic incumbent John Tierney in the primary, and Republican Richard Tisei in the general election. Before entering politics, Moulton served four tours in Iraq as a U.S. Marine. He went to high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, attended Harvard for undergrad, and returned to the Ivy for business school after serving in the Marines.
Moulton is running on the belief that the Senate needs generational change that he can bring by replacing Markey, 80, a popular incumbent who has been in Congress for almost 50 years.
“That idea that there are a lot of people out in America who don’t have a voice in our politics, don’t understand our connection to Washington DC, and the people in Washington DC don’t understand what’s happening on the ground, it’s very real for me,” Moulton said.
Here are the main takeaways from the local papers’ talk with Moulton:
One of Moulton’s “new ideas” is bringing high-speed rail to Massachusetts
During the Massachusetts Senate primary debate, Moulton repeatedly said that “there needs to be new ideas,” a “new playbook,” and “generational change” in the Senate.
Asked what those “new ideas” are, Moulton said his plan to bring high-speed trains to Massachusetts could be revolutionary for transportation, housing, and affordability. High-speed trains could, for example, give residents the ability to live on the South Shore, work on the North Shore, and have a reliable commute that is under an hour, he argued.
“In downtown Fitchburg, you have this really cool historic downtown with actually a lot of land right around it…and no one’s really building there because it takes 90 minutes on the train to get to North Station,” he said. “If you could get there in half that time, and get not just to North Station, but to South Station right by the Seaport, or anywhere else in the system, or down to a job in Plymouth — which it’s completely unimaginable to live in Fitchburg and work in Plymouth today — this would be transformative for affordable housing and job opportunities.”
This plan is not a “pie in the sky idea,” he argued, noting Morocco did it and has a quarter of Massachusetts’ GDP.
“You just have to electrify the train lines, which the MBTA is already belatedly planning to do, and you just need to buy the same kinds of modern trains that are really nice to ride in that they have in the rest of the world in contrast to the very old trains that we have here,” Moulton said.
He imagines a high-speed train could connect people in suburbs further outside of Boston, where the cost of housing is lower than in and around the capital, to the city where they could work.
He thinks this approach would be more “transformative” than the MBTA Communities Act, which former Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law in 2021 and Gov. Maura Healey is carrying out. The Act requires all transit-connected municipalities to build new housing by MBTA stops.
“The MBTA Communities Act law, let’s be honest, that’s not going to be transformative for housing, we’re not going to see a 20 percent increase in housing just because of this law,” he argued. “The effects my rail plan would have in Massachusetts are pretty transformative in terms of housing.”
Moulton imagines his high-speed train would incentivise developers to build in further-away communities, which could help increase the supply of housing and drive down costs.
“It is a fundamental supply and demand question,” he argued. “The places with the most affordable rent in America are building the most housing.”
As an example, he mentioned Austin, TX, where rent spiked in the 2010s. Prices came down in the 2020s after the city and surrounding suburbs issued tens of thousands of housing permits, flooding supply, and bringing typical rent rates down over 20 percent.
Housing, healthcare, and education should be human rights
Moulton believes healthcare should be a human right.
“It’s completely unacceptable for people to be sleeping outside in Harvard Square without housing just like it’s completely unacceptable for anyone in America, no matter their status, to not have healthcare,” he said.
Moulton thinks the best path forward is to have a universal public health insurance option that would compete with private insurers and lower costs across the board. He believes people should still have options beyond the public one, too.
A veteran himself, Moulton still uses Veterans Affairs’ (VA) benefits for his healthcare “to continue to have that experience with [his] fellow veterans.”
“There are a lot of people at the VA who don’t want to lose the VA and be pushed onto Medicare for All because they like the specialized services the VA provides,” he said.
Health insurance premiums have challenged just about every municipality in Massachusetts this year. In Lexington, premiums for town employees increased about 11 percent and put a lot of stress on the budget. The town ended up having to make several sacrifices, including laying off 11 teachers, to balance the fiscal year 2027 budget.
Wants ICE abolished and all involved prosecuted
Asked what his thoughts are on the recent ICE operations and how he would protect immigrants, Moulton said he believes ICE should be abolished, the agents should be prosecuted, and Kristi Noem, the former secretary of homeland security, should be prosecuted.
“These thugs, these criminals who are wearing federal badges need to be prosecuted for breaking the law,” he said. “You can’t have law enforcement that thinks they’re above the law.”
ICE’s operations have made national news for the past year-plus. Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both US citizens, were killed by ICE officers during the immigration crackdown and protests in Minneapolis earlier this year. This week in Maine, ICE agents fatally shot a 25-year-old motorist who was not their person of interest (according to Maine Sen. Angus King’s office). Right here in Lexington, ICE agents stopped a car in front of a school bus full of high school students to make an arrest.
Believes his hands-on support of Democrats will help take down Trump
Moulton repeated a few times that “Trump and the MAGA Republicans” need to be taken down. He said he is up for that challenge, referencing how he has debated Sean Hannity on his Fox News show.
Moulton thinks the best way to create change is to get more Democrats elected. He said he has helped do that for the past decade — and better than Markey.
Moulton started Serve America, a political organization that supports Democrats seeking office. According to its website, Serve America has helped flip several congressional seats, bringing more Democrats to Washington. Moulton said he has also gone door-to-door with Democrats seeking election, raised campaign funds, and supported female veterans in politics.
“That’s a big difference from what everyone else in Congress claims to do, that’s a huge difference from just showing up at one campaign rally so you can check a box,” said Moulton.
Constituent services and transparency
Moulton touted the work and recognition he has gotten for constituent services, noting that his office won an award in 2020 for running the best constituent service operation in Congress.
“We have helped translators get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ve helped Syrians get out of that war-torn country, I brought a Syrian kid to the State of the Union several years ago,” he listed off.
Moulton noted that he has done about 50 town halls across Massachusetts during his campaign for Senator so far, compared to Markey’s one.
“You’re not going to win awards for constituent services if you don’t show up,” he said.
He added that his office is poised to win another award soon for transparency in government. Moulton called for all Senators and candidates to join him in disclosing their health records on Wednesday, following the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham at age 71 and with Sen. Mitch McConnell, 84, hospitalized after a fall.
Financial transparency is something he and Markey have gone back-and-forth over.
Moulton reported an adjusted gross income of $956,286 and total federal tax payments of $247,366 last year. He recently bought a $3.1 million house in Marblehead, and has made at least $1 million in investments tied to the defense sector while serving on the House Armed Services Committee. Among other investments, Moulton’s holdings in Oura (which calls the Defense Department its largest enterprise customer, WBUR wrote) climbed from around a quarter of a million dollars in 2021 to between $1 million and $5 million in 2024.
Moulton’s campaign said in June he would move those investments into a blind trust, which means he won’t know what’s happening with them or have any control over them.
Markey reported making $250,263 in income (most of which came from his salary) last year. He files separately from his wife, Susan Blumenthal, who is a doctor and a former U.S. assistant surgeon general.
Upcoming election dates
The MA primary election, where voters will choose whether Seth Moulton or Ed Markey will appear on the general election ballot, is slated for September 1, 2026. The general election is scheduled for November 3, 2026.