Jake Auchincloss

It’s too bad that Sen. Elizabeth Warren is not on the ballot in 2026.

Otherwise, Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Newton would have a good shot of taking her out in a Democrat primary.

Instead, voters will have to settle for a Democrat Senate primary fight between veteran incumbent Sen. Ed Markey and challenger Rep. Seth Moulton of Salem.

While Markey won the Democrat Party endorsement at its convention in Worcester Saturday, Moulton got enough delegate votes to appear on the September primary ballot.

While the contest will attract a lot of statewide attention, both candidates are progressives who are aligned on most issues. So, the main issue between them is one of age.

Moulton at age 47 appears to be a younger version of Markey, who will be 80 come July.

Voters will decide whether to trade in one for another, the winner of whom will face off against Republican John Deaton, who is unopposed in the GOP primary, in November.

Meanwhile, another contest could be heating up for the state’s second Senate seat, which has been held by Warren since she was first elected in 2012. Her current term expires in 2030.

That primary challenge could come from Auchincloss, 37, who is Jewish, and who recently made headlines over his criticism of antisemitic Nazi tattoo chest wearing Graham Platner of Maine, who Warran, 76, has enthusiastically endorsed for the U.S. Senate.

Warren will be 80 years old, Markey’s age, if she seeks another term.

“He’s my kind of man,” Warren said as she endorsed Platner at a rally in Maine two weeks ago. “I’m proud to endorse him,” she said.

As for the Nazi tattoo, Warren said that Platner had apologized for it even though he wore it for eighteen years before covering up with another tattoo.

Besides, she said, Platner, like her, was “for working families.”

That alone was rich coming from Warren, a politician who led the charge blocking the merger of Spirit Airlines under President Joe Biden that forced the airline to cease operations last month.

Some 14,000 employees were thrown out of work, including 3,000 pilots, 5,500 flight attendants, and 5,500 ground maintenance employees.

So much for working families.

That aside, it is her making excuses for Platner that appeared to set off Auchincloss, a Harvard graduate and U.S. Marine Corps veteran of Afghanistan who also happens to be the only Jew in the state’s Congressional delegation.

And he is the only member of the state’s Democrat congressional delegation who has spoken out about Warren’s endorsement of Platner.

While he did not mention Warren by name, he said, “I find Platner’s Nazi tattoo and his commentary about it personally disqualifying. If it were me, I’d vote for someone else in the primary.”

Meanwhile, Warren has recently gone stone cold silent over Platner as additional embarrassing and sick comments he has made about fellow veterans have begun to surface, such as mocking a fellow soldier who was wounded four times, or implying that another veteran, a skilled sniper who is dead, exaggerated his kill numbers.

Not to be outdone by Warren, radical socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders also endorsed Platner. The interesting thing about that is that Sanders, the blowhard Bolshevik millionaire from Vermont, who is Jewish, is supporting a man who worshiped the Nazis so much that he wore their tattoo.

“We need a political revolution,” Sanders shouted. He could almost have added, “There is only one solution, a Communist revolution.”

And Platner could have joined in by chanting “Deutschland uber alles.”

That’s today’s Democrat Party.

Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: [email protected]