Young progressive candidates are energizing Democrats nationwide. It’s giving some Massachusetts liberals serious FOMO.

The young, progressive movement is surging in some of the country’s bluest corners, with candidates racking up Democraticprimary wins from New York to Colorado.

Read more Follow live updates on the Trump administration

But here in Massachusetts’ marquee US Senate race, that energy on the left is far more muted.

From the state party convention floor to online forums,some Democratic voters — both young and older — have for months lamented that the Senate primary betweenincumbent Senator Ed Markey and Representative Seth Moulton has left them in a Goldilocks conundrum. One candidate is a recognized progressive, but at 80, older than they want in their next senator; the other is younger, but too moderate for their taste.

Those Massachusetts primary voters are looking longingly at otherraces with young, insurgent options,asking: Where’s the one that’s just right here?

“Seth’s age does not make him a good progressive, and with Ed Markey, I have concerns about his age after we’ve just seen Senator [Lindsey] Graham pass away,” said Nicholas Golden, 32,a Wilmington School Committee member. Golden plans to back Markey but said his first preference was Representative Ayanna Pressley, who weighed challenging the senator before ultimately endorsing him.

“I’m looking for a real progressive, and she would bring energy and some really serious progressive bona fides,” said Golden.

Even as Markey and Moulton, 47, tout their progressive chops — and varying levels of support from liberal groups — the race stands in contrast to those in other Democratic strongholds, where fresh facesare emerging for a party finding its footing following its 2024 losses.

In New York City, a slate of Mayor Zohran Mamdani-backed candidatestoppled longtime House incumbents in the Democratic primary last month. At the same time in Colorado, a 29-year-old Democratic socialist defeated a nearly 30-year House incumbent.

“It’s, in some ways, ‘the grass is greener’ envy,” Tatishe Nteta, a professor of political science at University of Massachusetts Amherst, said of some progressive voters’ feelings here. “There’s a desire for that energy, that enthusiasm, that vision, that future that they are projecting.”

Markey and Moultonare in many ways closely aligned on policy: Both have well-worn Democratic voting records and forcefully oppose PresidentTrump, from his administration’s foreign policy decisions to its aggressiveimmigration enforcement.

Markey won his current term by painting himself as a progressive champion, topping a younger, progressive foe in Joseph Kennedy III in 2020 with backing fromUS Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and an army of young people running the so-called “Markeyverse.”

But Ocasio-Cortez has not yet weighed in on this race, and Markey’s signature policies that animated younger voters six years ago, such as a Green New Deal, havereceded from the campaign trail.

Polling shows younger voters still lean toward Markey over Moulton. In an April , Markey won 40 percent of those 35 or younger and nearly 50 percent of voters between 36 and 45.

And he has retained support among progressive groups and high-profile politicians, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and the Massachusetts High School Democrats and College Democrats of Massachusetts. Progressive Mass, a leading liberal advocacy group, in February endorsed Markey as a “proven supporter of progressive causes.”

But a Suffolk/Globe poll last fall showed Pressley, who in 2018 knocked off a longtime incumbent, could have dramatically reshaped the race. Sheedged Markeyin a hypothetical three-way matchup, albeit well within the margin of error, andwith younger voters largely gravitating toward her.

Pressley, in December, decided against a Senate run,dashing some voters’ hopes ofhaving in the race a relativelyyounger progressive —Pressley is 52 years old — who has already energized the state’s liberal base.

What some voters say each candidate is missing has manifested in campaign messaging: Markey argues that Moulton is insufficiently progressive, while Moulton routinely invokes concerns about Markey’s age.

To Amanda Litman — the head of Run For Something, which elevates young, progressive candidates — the Massachusetts Senate race feels like a test of how much voters care about “anti-establishment versus anti-centrism.”

Read more US bombing of Iran expands as American troops killed and Tehran retaliates against the Gulf states

She said she believes Moulton may struggle with voters who “can sniff out political triangulation,” but cast Markey’s decision to run again as a “disservice” to other, younger candidates.

“For him to stay in office with the argument … that ‘I alone am the one for the next six years,’ that’s objectively not true,” Litman said. “When the person at the top of the electoral pyramid moves, it has a downstream effect of creating so much opportunity for the next class of leaders.”

The dynamic has put some likely Democratic primary voters in the position of grudgingly making a choice come September.

“I’m absolutely against these long-term office holders, and Moulton seems like a Republican in Democrats’ clothing,” said Richard Oakley, a 67-year-old Democrat from Townsend. Oakleysaid he wanted “somebody who’s got a track record of sincerity” to run and has not decided who he’ll support.

Aline Kaplan, a 79-year-old Democrat from Hudson, said she is “reluctantly” planning to vote for Moulton after backing Markey in past cycles, despite concerns over Moulton, including his comments attributing the party’s 2024 losses to identity politics.

“I would have preferred for Ed Markey to step down this year and become a mentor, an éminence grise to whoever was coming up,” Kaplan said.

Markey told the Globe’s Editorial Board last week that if he were to win again, his next term in the Senate would be his last. He told reporters after his first debate with Moulton that he wanted “to finish this progressive agenda,” pointing to sweeping liberal policies such as Medicare For All and the Green New Deal.

The Sunrise Movement and Voters of Tomorrow, two youth advocacy groups that in April jointly endorsed Markey, called him a “leading climate champion” and one of Gen Z’s “strongest allies in Congress.”

“There is only one proven progressive in this Senate race,” Markey said in his own statement, “and my record proves it.”

Moulton, meanwhile, has responded to criticisms that he isn’t progressive enough by touting himself as a solid left-leaning voice for Massachusetts. He’s called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, replacing Senator Chuck Schumer of New York as the Senate minority leader, and implementing a “progressive affordability agenda,” includinga national wealth tax.

“The people of Massachusetts are in an urgent crisis and can’t wait another six years for results from the establishment playbook that got us a second term of Donald Trump and a MAGA Congress,” Moulton said in a statement to the Globe. “We need new leaders who are willing to fight for progressive values and beat Trump.”

He has also pointed to support from a handful of younger, left-leaning activists, including Chrissi Bates, vice chair of the Young Democrats of Massachusetts’ Women’s Caucus.

“Seth Moulton is the progressive leader Massachusetts needs to ensure no one in our Commonwealth is left behind or treated like a throwaway,” Bates said in a statement provided by Moulton’s campaign.

Still, some progressive groups, unenthused with the Senate choices, have shifted their focus to other races, particularly in Massachusetts’ First and Eighth Congressional Districts, which both feature younger, progressive candidates making the case for generational change against long-time moderate incumbents.

Persephone Hoxha, who works in Massachusetts with advocacy group Progressive Victory, said the group saw the congressional races as “far more exciting” and that they would have personally preferred to see Markey step down — though Hoxha sees him as better for left-leaning voters than Moulton.

Their organization, however, declined to endorse in the Senate race. One of the reasons?

Read more A wave of student loan borrowers have entered default since pandemic-era protections lapsed

It’s “not really that interesting,” Hoxha said.