In today’s edition … I ask about rising college prices … Trump helps make Canada liberal again … but first …
Read more Orlando held a fight in its city-owned arena. Then came the Nazi salutes.
Ed Markey is a survivor.
For a second straight reelection bid, Markey, an 80-year-old career politician, has defeated a younger challenger who questioned his age and vitality.
Markey on Tuesday night crushed a challenge from Rep. Seth Moulton: The Associated Press called the race roughly 30 minutes after polls closed. The win came six years after Markey defeated then-Rep. Joe Kennedy III in the 2020 Democratic primary. Moulton was not subtle about making Markey’s age and time in office an issue. His launch video, for example, featured him literally running. It didn’t work, and Markey won.
What is remarkable about Moulton’s loss is that it comes at a time when questions about age in politics have been raging, spurred by Democrats’ clear gerontocracy issue and President Joe Biden bowing out in the middle of his 2024 reelection campaign. On paper, this was the moment for someone like Markey to lose.
But he didn’t. And that has led some Democrats, even those close to Moulton, to argue that while the former congressman had the right message — age and anti-establishment — he was the wrong messenger.
“Markey’s case is rare and unique. Like all things Massachusetts politics, it should be looked at in a vacuum,” said a Democrat close to Moulton, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak bluntly about the congressman’s defeat.
The Democrat argued that Moulton tried to cast himself as a change agent to an electorate that was far more interested in where a candidate fell on the progressive versus moderate scale. “If someone perceived to be as radically progressive as Markey, who was also younger, ran, the results would be very different,” this person said. That, from someone close to Moulton, acknowledges that the congressman was not the right messenger for this moment.
The results of the Massachusetts race are very different from another contest in the Northeast this year.
Rep. John B. Larson, the 78-year-old incumbent Connecticut Democrat, lost his reelection bid for a 15th term in Congress earlier this year, failing to overcome an age-focused challenge from Luke Bronin, the former mayor of Hartford.
Bronin turned the race into a broader referendum on the Democratic Party, arguing that it needs more youth and energy in its ranks, and that Larson’s time has come and gone.
There were two major differences in these races:
“John Larson had his vulnerabilities, but the reason that race turned the way it did was Luke Bronin’s strengths,” said Andrew Mamo, an advisor to the Bench, a Democratic group that supported Bronin. “Ed Markey, on the other hand, has turned supporting him into a progressive litmus test in and of itself.”
So what lessons can Democrats take from these mixed results on establishment credentials?
We may get an answer next week in New Hampshire, where Rep. Chris Pappas, the Democratic favorite to win the state’s Senate nomination, is fending off a tougher-than-expected challenge from progressive Karishma Manzur.
A poll released late last month by the University of New Hampshire shows Pappas at 47 percent, with a 13-point lead over Manzur at 34 percent. The result marks a marked change from April, when Pappas was at 61 percent and Manzur at 18 percent.
Few Democrats in New Hampshire or nationally feel like Pappas, who has raised $15.3 million compared with Manzur’s $415,000, is going to lose. But that was also the case in Florida, where Alex Vindman unexpectedly lost to underfunded Angie Nixon.
Manzur’s race against Pappas is not part of the age debate — the congressman is younger than his challenger. But it is part of the debate about the Democratic establishment. Manzur has argued that Pappas, who has been in elected office for years and is part of a political family who owns the famed Puritan Backroom Restaurant in Manchester, is an establishment figure.
“The corporate politicians from both parties are selling us all these fabricated stories about how they may be better than the other, and at the end of the day, they are answering to the same donor class,” Manzur told me about Pappas. “It’s just such a gimmick; it’s such a game. And we are done with politics as usual. We are done.”
Manzur still has a lot to do. The poll was good news for her, but it still leaves her trailing, and other polls have found Pappas with a large lead.
I spoke with Pappas before Markey’s win. While the congressman acknowledged he would “never take anything for granted,” he argued it would be wrong to “apply what is happening in other places around the country to what is going on in New Hampshire.”
Read more Takeaways from Massachusetts, where generational challenges fizzled
“There are examples of candidates and leaders across the country who have been in the system for a long time who have been asleep at the wheel,” Pappas said. “You’d be hard-pressed to put me in the same category as these long-term incumbents who have not had the same connection back home.”
President Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Liberal Party.
Our colleague Aoife Walsh reported yesterday that the party won contested races in Quebec, Toronto and British Columbia, according to Canada’s public broadcaster, CBC. The Conservatives had held the seat in Quebec since 2018.
So what is going on here?
Carney, and by extension the Liberal Party, is experiencing a Trump bump. Unlike other American allies facing Trump tariffs and attacks, Carney has hit back, pledging to retaliate “dollar for dollar” and mocking Trump. It’s a strategy that’s proven popular with Canadians.
“At this consequential time for Canada, voters have placed their trust in our government’s plan,” Carney said in a statement. “Canada is being tested in a changing world,” he said, adding: “We are … diversifying our trading relationships.”
Trump’s latest hit against Canada came last week when he ordered Lake Ontario to be renamed Lake America. During an event on the change, Trump called the Canadian government “nasty people.”
Canada was unbowed, though. Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveiled a massive billboard on the shores of the lake that said, “Lake Ontario – Now and Always.” “Canadian women and men also know that things must be called by their name, and this lake is called Lake Ontario – today and forever,” Carney wrote on X.
This is worth watching. And not just to understand what is happening in Canada. There are also lessons here for Democrats, one that backs up the popular assumption that the only way to respond to Trump is with strength. That’s why possible 2028 candidates like Sens. Jon Ossoff (Georgia) and Mark Kelly (Arizona), or California Gov. Gavin Newsom, have relished their quarrels with the president.
New Jersey Monitor: The rise of telehealth has raised some interesting questions about who can treat you — virtually — and from where. A court in New Jersey has found “out-of-state doctors need a New Jersey license to treat residents” virtually.
Missouri Independent: The state’s Supreme Court will consider today whether voters can “force a referendum on congressional redistricting.” Some experts believe they should find that people have the power to force this kind of vote.
Michigan Public: Trump’s tariffs have impacted races nationwide, but possibly none more than those in Michigan, where the president’s targeting of Canada could have an outsized impact on the state’s economy. “Because of his silence, he owns this,” Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson said of her Republican opponent, John James.
This is one of my favorite questions. I absolutely loved hearing your sports memories.
Many of you mentioned the U.S. men’s hockey team beating the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics.
“I remember where I was and who I was with,” wrote Jill Tackabery.
Some of you went more personal.
“My high school golf team, which I was a player on, won the county championship in 1971. That’s a small accomplishment in the grand scheme of life, but the happy glow of our victory has stayed with me for 55 years,” wrote Joe Wisinski.
“My dad took me to see the Dodgers play the Milwaukee Braves at the Coliseum. I was a diehard 7-year-old Little Leaguer, so I brought my glove. During a pre-game pepper drill, a Braves batter tapped the ball just behind the third-base dugout, and I caught it. Warren Spahn, the Hall of Fame pitcher, walked up to the railing. ‘Hey kid, toss me the pea.’ My Dad said, ‘That’s Warren Spahn. I’d do what he asks.’ So I did. And he didn’t even throw the ball back to me when they were done. But at least I can now say I once pitched to a HOF pitcher,” wrote Mark Orwoll.
“Listening to the car radio with the rest of my family as the Red Sox came from behind to beat Minnesota in the last game of the season and clinch the American League pennant during their ‘Impossible Dream’ year” of 1967, wrote Charlie Seelig.
And here is my answer: I grew up in Las Vegas, and I will always remember watching the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels men’s basketball with my late grandfather. I can’t tell you which game or moment stands out, but I will never forget how much I enjoyed spending a few hours with him every few days.
Maybe it is because I have two kids under 5, but this piece on college tuition surpassing $100,000 in some places really struck me. It’s mind-boggling to think what college may cost a decade from now. So I wanted to ask you: Should any colleges cost this much? What needs to be done to combat college costs? Does it worry you that college costs this much? Let me and your fellow Early Brief readers know at [email protected].
Read more Using legal loopholes and executive power, Trump is remaking Washington
Thanks for reading. You can follow me on X at @merica.
