Lucas: By announcing early, Markey is looking for an edge. He’ll need it

The good news for Democrats is that Sen. Ed Markey at age 80 will seek re-election in 2026.

The bad news for Democrats is that Sen. Ed Markey at age 80 will seek reelection in 2026.

While apparently contradictory, both things can be true at the same time.

Markey, now a sprightly 78, made his reelection remarks a week ago Sunday during a softball interview on WCVB’s “On the Record” where Democrats go to be fawned over.

“This is the most energized I’ve ever been,” Markey said, sounding like Joe Biden, before the roof fell in on him during his debate with Donald Trump.

“It’s not your age, it’s the age of your ideas,” Markey added.

While age 80 and beyond these days is not considered to be as old as it used to be, mumbling Joe Biden proved to be an old 80, which is why Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama pushed him out of his re-election campaign.

Markey, who is from Malden, where he votes, and Chevy Chase Maryland, where he lives, has been on the public payroll, like Joe Biden, for more than 50 years, first as a state legislator, then a member of the U.S House and now in his second term as a U.S. Senator.

If he is reelected and serves another six years, he will at age 86 and have been on the public payroll for close to sixty years, which must be some sort of record.

Not, as Seinfeld would say, that there’s anything wrong with it.

On the other hand, there are some people looking for a youth movement who think there is.

Markey’s political longevity is almost as old as the functionally obsolete federally built Cape Cod bridges—the Sagamaore and the Bourne—that Markey and fellow Democrats want replaced at a cost of $4.5 billion.

But they can’t get Washington to pick up the bill even though the bridges are owned and operated by the federal government.

Still, the good news, given the sad state of the Republican Party in Massachusetts, is that 80-year-old Markey in 2026 would probably beat any Republican challenger in heavily progressive and Democrat Massachusetts. Although, a recent MassInc Polling Group survey showed him behind in a hypothetical match up with former Gov. Charlie Baker, 34-40.

Markey’s fellow Democrat, Elizabeth Warren,75, is expected  to win re-election this coming Tuesday over Republican newcomer John Deaton.

The bad news is that Markey, unlike Warren, could be challenged in a Democrat primary, the way he was in 2020, only more so in 2026.

In 2020 Markey defeated then U.S. Representative Joe Kennedy III who ran a pathetic, unconvincing, and un-Kennedy-like Democrat primary campaign against him.

The ill-advised Kennedy had no issues and no business making the run, other than he was Kennedy.

As it is, Joe Kennedy III is the last Kennedy to hold public office in Massachusetts. Joe Biden subsequently named him U.S. envoy for Northern Ireland.

Markey in 2020 then went on to handily defeat relatively unknown attorney Kevin O’Connor of Dover, his Republican opponent.

The campaign year of 2026 is where the bad news comes in because  Markey is bound to be challenged again in a Democrat primary. This time by a candidate who could knock him over.

That candidate could be feisty State Auditor Dianna DiZoglio, the 41-year-old Democrat who is on a crusade that has captured the attention of the voting public.

It is her mission to win voter approval of her petition—Question One on the ballot—giving her office the authority to audit and shine the light on the Massachusetts Legislature as never before.

It has rocked the State House and if approved, as expected, will thrust DiZoglio to the forefront of Massachusetts politics. A vote for Question One is a vote for her even if she is not on the ballot.

It is an accomplishment that will change the way the Legislature operates, something that few ever thought possible.

And it is coming from a woman from working class Methuen who challenged the power structure and the rules when she served both in the House and the Senate before becoming auditor.

It is also a political building block to build a campaign for the U.S. Senate.

No wonder Eddie Markey announced so early.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonheral.com