With just two weeks until the Massachusetts primary, new polling shows U.S. Senator Ed Markey has a sizable lead over challenger Congressman Seth Moulton.
The incumbent was in western Mass. over the weekend as he continues to make his case for another six-year term.
Standing before at least a hundred residents, local leaders and his colleague, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey took his re-election pitch to Holyoke Community College.
“You want Elizabeth as a chair, you want me as a chair - you want us with subpoena power to find out what's been going on in the last two years in our government,” the Democrat said ahead of stops in Northampton and Hadley. “Let's just say this - we're going to spread it all out there next year, so everyone in the country… can see what went on in their name.”
Markey acknowledged many of those plans hinge greatly on his party achieving a majority in the Senate in November.
They also hinge on him winning his own primary on September 1. According to a new poll from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and WCVB, Markey enjoys a significant lead over his primary opponent, Congressman Seth Moulton: 60%-32% (with leaners), up from 51%-28% in October of last year.
The poll was publicly released Sunday, a day after Markey’s HCC town hall – one that featured what’s turning out to be Warren's main party message going into the midterms.
“There are two things that we got to keep talking about - that is what's happening to costs in this country and Donald Trump and his team's corruption - cost and corruption, baby,” Warren said at the college’s Leslie Philips Theater.
The president’s dealings with cryptocurrency, the Strait of Hormuz and Iran in general were all featured prominently Saturday.
Speaking with reporters afterwards, Markey also spoke of how plans to re-secure millions in lost grant funding once destined for cities like Holyoke and Springfield were part of his party’s upcoming agenda.
“We had $20 million to remediate the environmental injustice in Springfield – it’s [been] the asthma capital of the United States - we had the funding, and our job next year is going to be just to restore all of that funding, to just put it right out there, onto the House and Senate floor, and to begin the fight to make sure that the communities - the blue collar communities that were going to use union labor to build the new clean energy future - are right back in business again,” he said when asked by WAMC. “… that's at the top of our agenda.”
On the other side of the state this weekend, Moulton shook hands and ran another race himself – a road race in Falmouth.
The 47-year-old Salem Democrat has pitched himself as a change candidate that would be a new voice in the Senate compared to the 80-year-old Markey.
Markey has previously told the press that, if re-elected, his next term would be his last. Whoever wins the Sept. 1 primary is slated to face Republican John Deaton in the general election.
Sunday’s poll from UMass/WCVB also differed greatly from a June UNH poll that suggested a far tighter race, with Markey only favored by 41% of those surveyed, compared to Moulton’s 35%.
Both polls indicated either Democrat held double-digit leads over Deaton
