Can 80-year-old Democrat Ed Markey clinch another US Senate term?
by Robert Tait in Washington from US news | The Guardian on (#7831D)
Age on the agenda in Massachusetts but octogenarian leftwinger leads younger rival Seth Moulton in primary poll
Democrats have spent the summer ousting long-serving incumbents in primaries across the country. On Tuesday, Massachusetts voters will decide whether that generational revolt extends to the 80-year-old Ed Markey, whose younger Democratic rival has argued that the incumbent is simply too old to serve another term.
But the Senate primary in this heavily Democratic state flips a central dynamic of previous contests, where youthful progressive insurgents have targeted - and in several cases, toppled - older incumbents they derided as avatars of an outmoded cautious establishment.
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