In today’s edition … We highlight the strangest fundraising appeal we have ever heard … And ask you about democratic socialists … but first …
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Sen. Ed Markey’s campaign released an ad this week meant to tout his progressive support.
Instead, the ad — which featured quick cuts of his top endorsers, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), along with Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) — only highlighted the progressive left’s gerontocracy problem that has dogged the Markey campaign for months.
Markey is 80 and, after 53 years in elected office, is running for reelection to another six-year term, while Sanders, 84, and Warren, 77, are currently serving terms through 2030.
The Democratic gerontocracy issue is well documented. There was Joe Biden’s forced departure from the 2024 presidential race because of his age and frailty. And Dianne Feinstein holding on to her Senate seat until her death at 90. And Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying while serving instead of retiring under President Barack Obama.
Progressives sometimes use the issue to lambast the Democratic establishment, noting several leaders in the House and Senate who are not overtly progressive and well over 70. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), 75, is a frequent target of these attacks.
But Markey’s race — and ad — expose another tension: Some progressives calling for generational change are less willing to apply that standard when the aging incumbent is a longtime ideological ally.
“I think a lot of folks were hoping that Markey would not run and would pass the torch to someone like Ayanna Pressley,” said Aidan Kohn-Murphy, a Gen-Z progressive activist who was a fellow for Markey’s 2020 campaign. Kohn-Murphy is supporting Markey in his personal capacity, but the organization he started, Gen-Z for Change, has yet to endorse Markey.
Rodericka Applewhaite, a spokesperson for Majority Democrats and a former Biden White House aide, recalled the pressure the White House felt as Biden continued his campaign despite persistent outside pressure.
“The Democratic Party has a gerontocracy problem. Voters told us that clearly in 2024,” Applewhaite said. “It’s a problem across the spectrum. Obviously Bernie is often part of this conversation, so is Markey.”
Applewhaite said it was up to Sanders and Markey if they should stay in office, but noted that the party’s age issues “didn’t start and end with President Biden.”
“Our party seniority-based system rewards longevity over renewal,” she said, calling it “bad for democracy” and a leading reason “voters are losing trust in the Democratic Party overall.”
Markey’s age has been an issue in his primary against Rep. Seth Moulton from the outset. Moulton launched his campaign with a video showing him running — not subtle — and says bluntly in the spot that he doesn’t “believe Senator Markey should be running for another six-year term at 80 years old.” And the super PAC supporting Moulton has been running ads featuring Michael Connolly, a former state representative who served with Markey 50 years ago, telling voters “part of serving is knowing when to step aside” and “Ed’s a friend, but it’s time to move on.”
Taylor Hebble, a Moulton campaign spokesperson, said the prominent progressives appearing in Markey’s ad were beside the point.
“This race isn’t about the other people in Senator Markey’s ad. It’s about the choice Massachusetts voters have between re-electing a 50-year incumbent who will be 86 years old at the end of the next term” or Moulton, the spokesperson said.
And Moulton responded to the ad with a video of his own that noted the industrial space in the ad was not in Massachusetts and, instead, was near Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
“I feel conflicted in a very broad sense,” Kohn-Murphy said of supporting a candidate who was 30 years into his political career when the activist was born. But, said Kohn-Murphy, “I am not at all conflicted in supporting Markey in this race,” arguing that the race is between “someone who has shown up as a leader in progressive politics” and Moulton, and for him the choice is clear.
Cam Charbonnier, Markey’s campaign manager, did not respond directly to questions about the ad, but told us “people of all ages and progressive leaders across Massachusetts are backing Senator Markey because he has earned their trust.”
“Massachusetts voters want a senator with a progressive track record,” Charbonnier said. “Ed Markey has that in abundance, Seth Moulton does not.”
Leaders We Deserve, the progressive political group that aims to oust incumbents with younger challengers, is not backing Markey because, as founder David Hogg told us, the age limit for someone they will support is 45, fewer years than the number Markey has been in office.
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But Hogg, personally, hopes Massachusetts voters choose Markey.
“I don’t think we need a conservative Democrat in Massachusetts,” Hogg said, referring to Moulton. “And with Ed, he clearly has done a good job of courting young voters.”
But, Hogg said, that doesn’t mean the left doesn’t have its own age issues. Sanders, Hogg said, should not run for reelection in 2030. “I love Bernie, obviously, but there comes a time when we need to make sure we let the next generation lead and practice what we preach,” he said. And he still supports an age limit for people in Congress.
“What I don’t want to have happen is have these historic progressives get replaced by more conservative people in a state like Massachusetts,” Hogg said. “What we are not trying to do is elect more conservative Democrats to replace older staunch progressives.”
This is not the first time Markey has faced these kinds of attacks. When he ran for reelection in 2020 against then-Rep. Joe Kennedy III, the older senator faced direct questions about his age. He dispatched them by picking up endorsements from younger politicians — see 52-year-old Pressley — and groups started by young people. Markey defeated Kennedy by around 10 percentage points in the primary.
“Gen Z cannot afford to lose one of our strongest allies in Congress, which is why Voters of Tomorrow is proud to endorse his campaign for re-election,” Jackson Hurley, top strategist at Voters of Tomorrow, a Gen-Z political organization, said when they endorsed in April.
We asked Voters of Tomorrow how a group whose goal is “empowering the next generation of leadership” and building “youth political power” can back a candidate who first got into politics before many of their members’ parents were born.
They did not respond to a request for comment.
VT Digger: Is the answer to the black market for cannabis allowing people to legally buy more? Officials in Vermont think so, and are now doubling the amount of cannabis Vermonters can buy in a single day.
Bridge Detroit: The Detroit City Council passed a measure opposing the “unmitigated use of Detroit’s water resources to cool data centers without certain safeguards” as they push for broader regulations on the data center industry.
San Antonio Current: I thought I had seen every kind of fundraising request. But I was wrong. Sara McGee, a Democrat running for a Texas House seat around Houston, tweeted recently that she got cyclosporiasis and would tell people about it if she raised $5,000 in the next 48 hours. Okay.
I asked you for your coffee recommendations yesterday, and you did not disappoint.
First, my favorite coffee shop: Peregrine Espresso on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., is my local spot. But I would like to give a big shout-out to Bucklyn Coffee in Blue Hill, Maine.
Many of you said the same thing: Home is where the heart (and coffee) is — and the reason is cost.
“I brew my coffee at home. I take it with half and half and a spoonful of sugar,” wrote John Bowen, who said a five-pound bag of coffee costs $42.99 at his local store. “Before Trump returned to the White House, generic ground coffee ran about $2.50 a lb.”
“The best coffee I drink is at home. The price is minuscule compared to coffee shops, and I can brew it the way I want,” wrote Chuck Perso, a reader in Virginia. “People shouldn’t complain of high prices when they choose the high-priced coffee shops in the first place.”
We asked the question because a new study found that five cups of coffee a day is not only generally safe for most adults but may offer cardiovascular benefits for some.
“I have reduced my coffee drinking over the years to breakfast only. I huuuugely look forward to my first sips after sitting down to my usual light breakfast,” wrote Mark Shapp.
Our favorite email, by far, came from Sheila Paskman. We will let her take it from here:
“I was in Harbin, China and was trying to avoid a crowded street by cutting through an alley. There, hidden in the alley was a little coffee shop. When I walked through the door, it was like stepping into another era. There were old-fashioned wooden chairs and tables with lace doilies in the center and a small vase with a single flower in the center of the doilies. There were lace curtains on the windows. The highlight of the cafe was a giant Russian coffeemaker from the early 1900’s. The amazing aroma of coffee permeated the air while a big old gramophone played Edith Piaf — in French, of course. Coffee was served in etched, leaded glasses in silver holders. The coffee had a wonderful, rich flavor. The whole experience was etched in my mind forever.”
This Patrick Marley piece on Wisconsin’s Francesca Hong is fantastic. So we wanted to ask you about it. Democratic socialists have won in America’s big cities. But do you think that kind of candidate could appeal in more purple states? If so, why do you think Republicans are spending millions to help get her elected? Do you have concerns about democratic socialists? Let us and your fellow Early Brief readers know at [email protected].
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Thanks for reading. You can follow Dan on X at @merica.
