Massachusetts votes today in the only primary anywhere in America — the first ballots of the midterm season. Polls opened at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m., and nearly 11% of voters had already banked ballots by mail or early voting before the doors opened, WBUR reported this morning. Ed Markey defends his Senate seat against Seth Moulton at the top of the ticket. And voters up and down that ballot are weighing a number that appears nowhere on it: Donald Trump's 33% national approval.
Markey, 80, has served in Congress since 1976 — he arrived while Gerald Ford still held the White House — and he pledges this term is his last. Moulton, the congressman who gave up his own House seat to run against him, built the whole challenge on one argument: generational change. Moulton asked voters to retire Markey; Markey promised to retire himself — six years from now, on his own clock. Voters heard it. They shrugged. Emerson's final survey put Markey ahead 60–33, a 27-point spread. Suffolk University and the Boston Globe, in the field Aug. 13–16, had it 52–38. In May this was a five-point race.
