Seth Moulton

WORCESTER — The sprint to September is on.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., coasted to the Democratic endorsement here Saturday, setting the stage for a summer primary fight that’s as much about the future of the party as it is about the future of the nation.

“We face a reckoning. The decisions we make this Election Day and in the months to come will define the lives of our children and generations beyond,” Markey told thousands of Democratic foot soldiers and activists who filled the DCU Center on the second day of their statewide party convention.

“Do we want a country that grows the working class? Or one that is beholden to billionaires and corrupt power?” he continued. “Do we want a country fueled by compassion or one that rewards corruption?”

Markey’s rival for the endorsement, and now the nomination, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, has cast the race as a fight for generational change.

Moulton, D-6th District, made that argument visible on Saturday as he took to the stage accompanied by his young daughters.

“We are in the fight of our lives because America, as we know it is on the line,” Moulton, a Marine veteran, said. “And the status quo playbook has failed us time and time again.”

“Sometimes when I tuck Emmy and Caroline into bed, they ask if there are any monsters out there. And the truth is that there is a monster. And he’s in the White House. And I will not rest until he is behind bars,” the Salem pol, 47, said.

Markey, 79, took 2,744 votes, or 72.94%, to Moulton’s 1,018, or 27.06%, from the 4,013 delegates who voted, state Democratic Party Chairman Steve Kerrigan said.

The results mean that both candidates will qualify for the September primary ballot, Kerrigan said.

Moulton’s campaign trumpeted its performance in a statement, saying it had “cemented its position as a surging statewide movement heading into the summer.”

Markey’s supporters, bedecked in pink tee-shirts, were a visible and enthusiastic presence in the concourses outside the convention and inside the arena.

Moulton’s supporters, in safety yellow tee-shirts, also worked delegates and handed out signs. Loyalists for both men rushed the stage when the candidates gave their remarks.

Markey, who has served on Capitol Hill for a half-century, stressed his decades of experience and hammered on his commitment to protect working families.

“Trump sold out basic needs for corporate greed,” he said. “But Donald Trump, JD Vance and the Fox News cabinet are simply taking full advantage of a rigged system is ... working exactly as it was designed: For the rich and for the powerful.

“And it is time we stop giving tax breaks to those who trade stocks over those who punch clocks,” he continued. “I have a plan to make millionaires and billionaires pay taxes on their investment income the same way working people pay taxes on income. It’s time we value work over wealth and make billionaire CEOs pay their fair share.”

Markey received some of his loudest applause of the day when he vowed to protect transgender residents and youth, telling the crowd that “we need to protect trans kids because trans rights are human rights. And do not let anyone, Republican or Democrat, tell you otherwise,” he said.

Markey’s remarks were a direct jab at Moulton, who made national headlines in 2024 for his comments about transgender athletes.

Markey returned to Moulton’s comments at the end of his speech. Without mentioning his rival’s name, he thundered that “Massachusetts deserves better than a senator who scapegoats trans kids.”

If elected, Moulton said he would not vote to reelect U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., as the party’s floor leader; would continue to work to elect more Democrats to Congress, and push “the most comprehensive affordability agenda in the country.”

He’d pay for it by “passing a national wealth tax on mega-millionaires,” he said, adding that it’s “time for the Epstein class to pay their fair share. Let’s empower the union class and the working class once again.”

The winner of the Sept. 1 primary, which has attracted the interest — and the money — of super PACS backing both candidates, will face Republican John Deaton in the November general election.

The matchup between Markey, of Malden, and Moulton, of Salem, was the only contested race facing Democratic activists on Saturday.

Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, both of whom were endorsed for reelection on Friday night, will not face primary opponents this year.

Healey and Driscoll made a brief appearance on Saturday when they were brought to the convention stage by state Democratic Party Chairman Steve Kerrigan. They waved to the crowd, but did not speak.

The same was the case for the state’s constitutional officers: state Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell, Auditor Diana DiZoglio and Treasurer Deb Goldberg, as well as Secretary of State William Galvin.

Neither Galvin nor DiZoglio will face a general election in November, while Campbell and Goldberg currently both have Republican opponents.

Markey has maintained a steady polling advantage, but Moulton has whittled away at that gap.

The Malden pol held a 13-point advantage in a University of New Hampshire poll in April. An Emerson College poll in May showed Moulton within 5 points.

Hugh Monahan, a retired union electrician from Hanson, on the South Shore, said he’s backing Markey. He’s not concerned by Markey’s age.

“I’m 78,” he quipped, adding that Markey “still has a lot on the ball.”

Patricia Bellfield, a delegate from Attleboro, said she was backing Markey, who had gotten “into minority communities — which is important."

Bellfield, who is Black, said she was “not that familiar” with Moulton or his stands on specific issues.

Norman LaFlash, a retired letter carrier from Auburn, said he was backing Moulton.

“When it comes to postal issues, he’s been very supportive,” LaFlash said.

Luis Amaral, a retired racing dog trainer from Fall River, said he was backing Moulton because he was “tired of all the old stuff.”

“I’ve listened to him talk and I think he’s going in the right direction,” Amaral said. And while he respects Markey, “it’s time to move on, like we did with Joe Biden.”

Nanda, a delegate from Wenham who declined to give her last name, also was backing Moulton.

“We need an infusion of new energy,” she said. “And we need younger voters. He’s willing to take risks — they’re not always the smartest ones — but he’s willing to take risks."

Markey has “done a great job,” she added. “But he needs to leave on a good note.”

While Democrats counted the endorsement votes cast by the delegates, friends and supporters paid heartfelt tribute to U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-4th District, who died last month, aged 86, of congestive heart failure.

While serving in the state Legislature, Frank, who was the first openly gay member of the U.S. House, insisted on a gay rights vote in the House of Representatives, Jimmy Segel, a longtime friend and confidant, said.

Once, during a protracted budget debate, Frank, known for a puckish sense of humor, filed a bill to “eliminate the month of June,” Segel, a former lawmaker, said. The budget is due by midnight on June 30 every year.

DiZoglio, who has spent the last two years clashing with top Democrats on Beacon Hill over a legislative audit that voters overwhelmingly approved two years ago, did inject a note of drama into Saturday’s proceedings.

DiZoglio took to the stage singing her reworked version of British soul singer Raye’s hit “Where Is My Husband?" — in this case, “Where Is My Audit?”

The crowd erupted.

Read More: AG Campbell gives DiZoglio the go-ahead to hire a lawyer in audit standoff with Legislature

She contrasted efforts by the Bay State’s Capitol Hill delegation to counter the Republican Trump administration to what she said was Beacon Hill’s efforts to bottle up the audit.

“The demand for the audit is symptomatic of something much larger — they’re in an uproar because they’re being ignored by the government they paid for," DiZoglio, a former lawmaker, said.

“People are hungry for a government we can trust,” she continued. “The longer Beacon Hill ignores people, the more it becomes insulated from the struggles of the working class.

She argued that “Beacon Hill is sick with the disease of power and control that is resulting in the decay of our democracy.

“People are fed up ... with leaders who are drunk with power and allergic to accountability,” she said.

Campbell, who will face Republican Mike Walsh, highlighted her resistance to Trump’s White House and the more than 50 lawsuits she’s filed against it.

“We’ve stood up and said ‘Not here. Not on my watch,’” she said.

Campbell, the first Black woman to be elected the state’s top lawyer, framed that work through the eyes of the state’s young people.

Read More: ‘Our work is far from done’: Mass. AG Andrea J. Campbell will seek reelection in 2026

She reflected on a recent meeting with many of them in New Bedford, where they shared concerns about their parents’ ability to make the rent; their fears about family members being taken by immigration agents and their ability to afford a college education.

“I keep thinking that none of our children should have to carry these weights on their shoulders, not in Massachusetts, not in America. And certainly not in 2026,” Campbell said. “This work of making young people excited, and not worried, about the future is not impossible to do. Massachusetts has done impossible things before.”

“We should be hopeful about the future. Our children should be hopeful about the future,” she continued. “We took on tyranny before and we’re actually taking it on again right now.”

Goldberg, who faces a challenge from Elizabeth Dionne, a lawyer and select board member from Belmont, said she and her fellow Democrats know “what the government’s role is — it is to help people."

“As the federal government doubles down, stripping away every advancement we’ve made in our state, I will not be discouraged. This is a fight for the soul of our country, and I won’t back down,” Goldberg said.

“A strong economy is built by including everyone, not a select few. Our work is under attack from Washington. What they call woke, I call economic empowerment.”

Goldberg poked Dionne over her promise to audit the Treasurer’s Office. Such audits are already happening, Goldberg said, “all she has to do is look.”

Galvin, who announced in February that he was running for a historic ninth term, stressed his efforts to protect voting rights in the state in the face of what he described as Trump administration attacks.

Read More: Bill Galvin’s not done yet — and it’s all about Trump, 2028 and the Census | Bay State Briefing

“We know how to vote in Massachusetts ... we respect people if they vote for us or not,” Galvin said, pointing to efforts to curtail mail-in voting.

“This is the time that we must step up,” he said, adding, “Let people look back 250 years from now and say ‘They met the hour, they met the time.’ One thing I am convinced of: it depends on us.’”