Politics is messy, confusing, and practiced by people who are good at hiding their emotions and secret deals. But at a recent joint press conference headlined by Senator Ed Markey and Representative Ayanna Pressley this fall, one thing was obvious to anyone watching: There was no way the two were going to be running against each other next year.
Some top Democrats had come to believe that Markey, 79, might eventually end his bid for reelection, call it an extraordinary half-century career in politics, and endorse his younger, progressive teammate Pressley to take his seat. Others never believed Pressley would enter the race, leaving Markey to continue with his existing primary opponent, Representative Seth Moulton.
It turns out, Pressley chose door number two.
When they appeared together in mid-November to rally with unionized Logan Airport workers, there was zero awkwardness. They stood comfortably side by side at an outdoor event when they could have easily stood apart. Markey heaped genuine praise on Pressley, calling her “a champion.” Pressley called Markey, “my colleague and brother in service,” noting that they have “worked shoulder to shoulder on many issues of consequence.”
Nothing about that rally (or the next one they held an hour later with federal workers downtown) suggested a battle royale was brewing.
The talk of a three-way Democratic primary for US Senate next year has dominated political chatter ever since Moulton jumped into the race in mid-October. Pressley did the due diligence: She quietly met with donors and activists outside of her district to gauge interest. Several polls tested how a three-way race might unfold, including one from the Globe that showed the contest starting out messy, with Pressley leading Markey by a single point, well within the margin of error.
One could argue that Pressley is playing the long game. She might simply wait until Markey or Senator Elizabeth Warren retires, and maybe then she can walk into a Senate seat. However, Governor Maura Healey, Representative Katherine Clark, state Attorney General Andrea Campbell, and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, among others, might complicate matters in such a scenario. All of the above have proven much better at raising campaign money than Pressley.
Pressley told the Globe on Tuesday that the timing of a hard Senate run just wasn’t right. Her daughter was finishing high school, she said, and she still found purpose in the House.
But the political reality points to something simpler and far less romantic: Pressley chose the safe route. A Senate run offered upside, yes, but also enormous risk to her brand, her national profile, and the image she has carefully cultivated since arriving in Congress. She says she believes she would have won. But it was far from obvious that she was right. She could have lost. By stepping aside, she avoids those risks entirely.
Start with the race itself. The 2026 Democratic primary was never going to be a clean, two-person contest had she entered. Instead, Pressley was staring at a three-way race with an incumbent who still commands loyalty among older progressives, and Moulton, who has rarely met a political fight he didn’t want to escalate and has little left to lose. That dynamic is a recipe for a wild, nasty primary, not an orderly passing of the torch. It’s the kind of race where the candidate with the highest ceiling faces the hardest path. And in this field, that candidate was Pressley.
Her political base overlaps heavily with Markey’s: Boston progressives, younger climate-minded voters, and the activist class that propelled him in 2020, when he last faced a challenge. Moulton, meanwhile, would have siphoned off voters hungry for generational change and a more combative posture. Pressley would have needed to beat both, not just one. Anyone who has watched Massachusetts Democratic primaries knows how unforgiving that math can be. The risk wasn’t that she’d get wiped out. The risk was that she’d get stuck in the middle — strong enough to make it competitive, not strong enough to break through.
That’s a costly place for any politician to be, especially one with a national profile to protect.
The House is where she has built a stable platform. She is gaining seniority, has committee influence, holds a safe district, and has a clear ideological lane with a national voice disproportionate to her formal power. The Senate, by contrast, is an unpredictable gamble — especially in a state whose Democratic electorate backed Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders in both 2016 and 2020.
There is also the life she is building with her husband, Conan Harris. When Pressley first ran for Congress in 2018, her financial disclosure form showed her in personal debt. Now they list potentially $8 million in assets — the first time she has reported being a millionaire — largely through real estate holdings, according to the New York Post. The couple owns four properties in Massachusetts, including one on Martha’s Vineyard. Last year, they sold a fifth property in Fort Lauderdale. And in April 2024, Harris and his partners won City of Boston approval to build a multimillion-dollar, 400-unit housing project — the kind of development that would have become a talking point in a Senate campaign about insiders and connections.
But she isn’t running for the Senate. And, now, she doesn’t have an opponent for reelection to the House.
Correction: An earlier version of this story had an incorrect age for Senator Ed Markey.
James Pindell is a Globe political reporter who reports and analyzes American politics, especially in New England.