By Nathaniel "Beltway" Steele
Massachusetts Democrats had a chance this week to test whether the party's restless left could topple its old guard. It could not — not this time.
Sen. Ed Markey, 80, defeated a younger primary challenger by a wide margin, according to NBC News projections, and used his victory speech to court the voters who nearly cost him: "the power of the Progressive movement," he called it, telling young supporters their voices needed to be heard now. Rep. Richard Neal and Rep. Stephen Lynch, 71, also won renomination. Lynch's race was the most closely watched of the night — a 71-year-old centrist against Patrick Roath, 39, in what The New York Times described as a contest that laid bare the party's generational and ideological divides. Lynch held on.
In the open Sixth Congressional District, Dan Koh, a former Biden White House aide who ran with the former president's endorsement, won a crowded Democratic field, the Times reported.
On the Republican side, Michael Minogue — a former medical device company executive — won the GOP nomination for governor, defeating Brian Shortsleeve, NBC News projects. He will face Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat seeking a second term, in November.
Taken together, the results suggest a Massachusetts Democratic electorate still willing to back familiar names, even after a primary season that has, in other states, proven turbulent for incumbents. NBC News called Lynch's race "the highest-profile test remaining for House incumbents" this cycle. It ended, for now, the way it usually does in Massachusetts: with the establishment intact.
Read the footnotes. The story's always in the footnotes.
— Compiled from reporting by NBC News and The New York Times.
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