Massachusetts did not keep anyone waiting either. The Associated Press posted its call of the state's U.S. Senate race at 8:01 p.m. on Tuesday, November 3 — one minute after polls closed — for Democratic incumbent Ed Markey, according to Six States Signal's account of the AP calls, which were posted for Markey and for Gov. Maura Healey at the same minute. The AP count, with 1,851 of 2,384 precincts reporting and an estimated 80.9 per cent of the vote in, gave Markey 1,384,546 votes; tabulated shares put him at about 63.8 per cent against 31.7 per cent for Republican John Deaton, who had 687,377 votes, with minor candidates taking the rest.

Source: Associated Press election results, Massachusetts U.S. Senate

The shape of the result was the same in the state's biggest city and its second city alike. In Boston, with all 275 precincts reporting, unofficial city returns gave Markey 142,178 votes to Deaton's 28,471, with Socialism and Liberation candidate Joe Tache at 7,727, independent Shiva Ayyadurai at 2,958 and 502 write-ins. In Worcester, complete unofficial city results gave Markey 32,189 votes, or 67.8 per cent, to Deaton's 12,568, or 26.47 per cent. A race called sixty seconds after the polls closed, and carried by roughly two-to-one in the cities that anchor the state, was never a contest in the general election at all.

In the Senate since 2013, and first elected to Congress in 1976

Markey's win gives him a third full Senate term. He has represented Massachusetts in the Senate since 2013, when he won the seat in a special election, after a House career that began in 1976 — a span that makes him one of the longest-serving members of Congress in the country. Tuesday's result extends that run by six more years, into a Senate his party will now control after winning both chambers on November 3, which restores the committee power that comes with a majority.

The real test came in September, inside his own party

As in Colorado, the incumbent's harder election was the primary. In the September 1 Democratic primary, Rep. Seth Moulton challenged Markey for the nomination — a generational challenge from a fellow Massachusetts Democrat — and Markey beat him, taking 580,628 votes and about 64.7 per cent in the Democratic primary count. The general election offered Deaton, an attorney running his second statewide race in two years: in 2024 he was the Republican nominee against Sen. Elizabeth Warren and lost that race too. Against Markey, in one of the most Democratic states in the country, he finished more than 30 points behind.

Markey's re-election was part of a clean statewide night for Massachusetts Democrats: the AP also called the governor's race at 8:01 p.m. for Healey and her running mate Kimberley Driscoll, and Massachusetts voters were deciding a long ballot of state questions on the same night, including the cannabis and firearms measures tracked elsewhere in this site's Massachusetts coverage. For the Senate nationally, Markey's seat was one of the holds — alongside incumbents such as Chris Coons in Delaware, Cory Booker in New Jersey, Mark Warner in Virginia, Jeff Merkley in Oregon and Jack Reed in Rhode Island — that let the Democrats' gains in Republican-held states turn into an outright majority rather than a near miss.

What happens next

Massachusetts certifies differently from most states, and the timeline is slower by design: the Secretary of the Commonwealth does not publish unofficial statewide election-night results, local clerks review the count and submit certified results to the state, the Secretary's office has 15 days to review and publish official statewide results, and Boston's deadline to certify its official results is November 18. The AP call remains a projection until that process completes. Markey's new term begins with the new Congress on January 3, 2027. Deaton, having now lost Senate races in 2024 and 2026, faces the question every two-time candidate faces — whether a third run, or a different office, comes next.