Topline results and crosstabs for the poll can be found at www.umass.edu/poll

A new statewide University of Massachusetts Amherst/WCVB Poll has found that challengers to U.S. Senator Ed Markey will face a difficult battle to unseat the three-term incumbent, as Markey currently enjoys his highest popularity in the Bay State in the past year.

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As the field of Markey’s primary challengers has started to take shape with Rep. Seth Moulton and former teacher Alex Rikleen already throwing their hats into the ring for the 2026 race, the poll of 800 respondents and 416 likely Democratic voters conducted Oct. 21-29 finds Markey holding significant leads against these and other potential challengers, as well. Against Moulton and Rikleen, Markey holds a 20-point lead, although if Rep. Ayanna Pressley is added to the mix Markey’s lead is cut to 10 points.

The poll also finds that while Markey’s age is certainly top-of-mind among voters, 54% approve of the job he is doing in Congress’ upper chamber, a three-percentage point increase from February and matching his highest approval rating since May 2024. While it is early in the contest, Markey also enjoys a significant name recognition advantage that his current challengers lack.

“With Sen. Ed Markey having served the commonwealth in Congress since 1976, it comes as no surprise that more than three-quarters of Democratic likely voters express some familiarity with the candidates vying to become the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate,” says Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll. “While voters most often describe Markey as ‘good,’ ‘experienced,’ ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive,’ the most frequently mentioned word is ‘old,’ reflecting concerns about Markey’s age and the fact Markey, if reelected, would be 80 years old when taking the oath of office. With Markey’s age at the heart of both the Moulton and Rikleen campaigns, Markey will need to address the elephant in the room, and convince voters that, in his case, age is but a number.”

Jesse Rhodes, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll, counters that the new poll finds the issue of age is less important to voters than many others facing the commonwealth and the nation, and that national disappointment with the Democratic Party is not impacting voters’ views of the midterm race.

“Although there has been a lot of criticism of the Democratic Party’s leadership in the age of Trump, attitudes toward political leaders – whether positive or negative – do not seem to be playing a big role in shaping Massachusetts voters’ priorities,” Rhodes says. “Only 3% of those surveyed said that ‘experience’ was a top consideration in determining their vote in the Democratic primary elections, and 0% said that ‘represent[ing] a new generation of leadership’ mattered. In contrast, 31% said that finding a candidate who would challenge Trump was the top consideration shaping their primary voting plans. Clearly, many Massachusetts want to focus on fighting the current Republican president, rather than worry about the future of the Democratic Party.”

“In 2020, Markey overcame a strong primary challenge from then-Rep. Joseph Kennedy III by mobilizing a grassroots network of young, educated and progressive supporters dubbed the ‘Markeyverse,’” Nteta says. “Five years later, the coalition that delivered Markey his victory remains firmly in his camp with a plurality of young voters and a majority of liberals and highly educated voters expressing their intention to vote for Markey. As he faces yet another challenge from within his own party, Markey will need to continue to shore up his support from this base of energized voters. Failure to do so may result in the end of his nearly 50-year career serving the residents of the Bay State.”
 

Markey’s Challengers, Current and Theoretical – Moulton, Rikleen, Pressley, etc.

The new UMass Amherst/WCVB Poll finds that the current field of challengers for Markey’s seat trail the incumbent, but things open up significantly should he not run in 2026.

“This primary will reveal more than who wins – it will show what kind of Democrat Massachusetts voters want representing them in Washington,” says Raymond La Raja, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “Whether they favor steady progressive leadership or a more centrist course could foreshadow where the party is heading nationally. Sen. Markey holds about a 2-to-1 advantage among liberal Democrats, while Rep. Moulton’s strength lies with moderates. Given that liberals make up the majority of the Democratic electorate, Moulton faces an uphill climb unless he can broaden his appeal beyond the center.”

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“Rep. Moulton has a long history of challenging the Democratic party establishment,” Nteta explains. “From his successful campaign against nine-term incumbent John Tierney to his failed attempt to oust then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and calling on President Joe Biden to exit the presidential race, to his controversial comments concerning transgender athletes, Moulton has emerged as one of the most acerbic, agitating and bold voices in the Democratic Party. Thus, it comes as no surprise that from a crowd of potential challengers to Markey, Moulton decided to throw his hat in the race and seek to do what no other political candidate has done in 49 years – defeat Ed Markey in the State of Massachusetts. While Moulton may be well known nationally for his efforts, in the Bay State many are still getting acquainted with him, with words like ‘unknown’ and ‘unsure’ being used most frequently to describe him. With the campaign in its early stages, Moulton has months to introduce himself to the state and to make his case to voters that he is the candidate that will best represent the Bay State into the next decade.”

“Markey leads current and potential challengers for the Democratic Party nomination, but there are reasons for concern among his team,” warns Alexander Theodoridis, associate professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “The Democratic primary is an eternity away in political time and Reps. Moulton and Ayanna Pressley, neither of whom has run statewide, seem to draw non-trivial chunks of the Democratic vote. And meaningful numbers of Democrats remain undecided.”

“Markey’s advantage among women stands out,” La Raja says, looking at the demographic results found in the poll’s crosstabs. “While men and women in the state’s Democratic electorate differ little in their ideology – both groups are overwhelmingly liberal – Markey leads women by nearly 3-to-1 (59% to 20%), while Moulton is tied among men (40% to 40%). That suggests the gender gap in this race isn’t just about ideology but about other factors related to candidate qualities or something deeper in how men and women connect with the candidates.

“Age also tells a surprising story in this primary,” La Raja continues. “Despite running as a voice for a new generation, Seth Moulton performs strongest among older Democrats, while younger voters continue to back Ed Markey by wide margins. That suggests Markey’s progressive brand still resonates deeply with the party’s younger base.”

“Is Moulton getting a jump start in an open battle for the Senate?” Nteta asks. “In the aftermath of his decision to challenge Markey, many were wondering why Moulton would put his political career in jeopardy to face a popular incumbent with a track record of besting his younger counterparts. The answer may be found in our polling, which indicates that Moulton’s decision may yield political fruit if, by chance, Markey decided to exit the Senate race. Our results suggests that in an open primary, the contest would become a three-way battle led by Moulton (29%), followed by Pressley (24%) and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (19%), should they choose to enter.

“Across the country, a number of young Democrats are urging long-serving Democratic incumbents to ‘pass the torch’ to a new generation of leaders,” Nteta adds. “In Massachusetts, the Democratic Senate primary is shaping up to be one of the nation’s most closely watched races, testing whether Democratic voters are indeed ready, willing and able to move on from a popular incumbent. So far, our polling suggests that Democratic voters continue to support Markey, who leads not only his current challengers, but also emerges as the frontrunner in a hypothetical matchup involving Rep. Pressley. For now, Markey remains a formidable opponent whose track record suggests that he will not go quietly into the night.”
 

Voters’ Views on Changes to Elections

The latest UMass Amherst/WCVB Poll also asked respondents’ views on a slate of possible changes to how elections are managed in the Bay State.

“Sizeable majorities of Bay State residents favor making Election Day a holiday, allowing same-day voter registration, and requiring all voters to show government issued photo ID to vote,” Theodoridis says. “The state is more divided on whether those currently serving a prison sentence should be allowed to vote and whether voting should be compulsory for all eligible citizens. For a plurality of Massachusetts residents, the jury is still out on whether an independent commission should redraw state legislative and congressional districts.”

“As with previous polls, we find that a huge majority of Massachusetts residents supports measures that make voting more convenient,” Rhodes adds. “In particular, 65% support allowing people to register on Election Day and 71% favor allowing people to register and cast their ballot during the early voting period. Given longstanding supermajority support for these measures, it will be interesting to see if the Democrat-controlled state legislature will institute these popular reforms.”
 

Methodology

For this University of Massachusetts Amherst/WCVB Poll, YouGov interviewed 800 adults from Massachusetts, 416 of which were likely Democratic primary voters, providing two samples of interest. These respondents were sampled based upon a sampling frame on gender, age, race and education. The sampling frame is a politically representative “modeled frame” of Massachusetts adults, based upon the American Community Survey (ACS) public use microdata file, public voter file records, the 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration supplements, the 2020 National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll, and the 2020 CES surveys, including demographics and 2020 presidential vote.

For the main sample, the cases were weighted to the sampling frame using propensity scores. The cases and the frame were combined and a logistic regression was estimated for inclusion in the frame. The propensity score function included age, gender, race/ethnicity, years of education and home ownership. The propensity scores were grouped into deciles of the estimated propensity score in the frame and post-stratified according to these deciles. The weights were then post-stratified on 2024 presidential vote choice as well as a four-way stratification of gender, age (4-categories), race (4-categories) and education (4-categories), to produce the final weight for the main sample.

For the 416 Massachusetts likely Democratic primary voters, a sampling frame of 2022 Vote Smart Massachusetts Democratic primary voters was employed. The cases were post-stratified on a three-way stratification of gender, age (4-categories) and race (2-categories) to produce the final weight for this sample of Democratic primary voters.

The margin of error of this poll is 4.1% among all respondents and 6.1% among Democratic likely voters.

Topline results and crosstabs for the poll can be found at www.umass.edu/poll