SALEM — Now that he is out of the race, Congressman Seth Moulton, D-Salem, said it's important to understand why he took a shot at being president in the first place — to beat President Donald Trump.
"It's incredibly important that we defeat him, and I don't think he's going to be as easy to beat as many Democrats think," said Moulton, who exited the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination on Aug. 23. "And, I still don't think there is a better foil for him than a young combat veteran and I was the only one (combat veteran) in the race."
The lane that the Marblehead-raised, Harvard-educated Moulton said he "owned" was as a veteran who served four tours in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer and who saw combat and led a platoon.Â
He ran a campaign heavy on national security and foreign policy, areas on which the 40-year-old Salem resident said Trump is weak.
"We absolutely occupied it and we owned it ... The reaction from a lot of corners after I got out of the race is, 'We don't have a national security/foreign policy candidate anymore,'" Moulton said during a recent interview over breakfast at the Ugly Mug Diner on Washington Street in downtown Salem.
Having failed to qualify for any of the Democratic National Committee debates in terms of fundraising and polling support, Moulton was among a handful of candidates to drop out of the crowded field that now totals 20 candidates. U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, was the latest to drop out.
Moulton said the media coverage has been dominated by three front-runners: former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
"This is one of the challenges of this media world we live in, this social media driven world where it's all about what goes viral and gets the most clicks versus what's the best investigative reporting on the front page of the newspaper everyday," Moulton said.
Moulton said he was proud of his campaign, which highlighted issues of national security, national service (he joined the Marines just after graduating college and just before 9/11) and the need for more mental health services. In May, he revealed his personal struggle with post-traumatic stress from combat, during an event at the Lynn Museum. He has since co-sponsored a bipartisan bill designating 9-8-8 as a hotline number for suicide prevention and mental health crisis counseling.
"And we had the most ambitious mental health plan of any presidential candidate ever, so I'm proud of getting in the race, I'm proud of the campaign we ran and the issues that we elevated, but I also feel confident that it was the right decision to get out, because I always told my volunteers and supporters if I ever got to a point where I just didn't see a path to the nomination, I wasn't going to drag it out."Â
Getting in late
Part of the problem, he said, was he got into the race too late, although, he mused, who would have thought April was too late?
But his wife, Liz, had just given birth to their daughter, Emmy, in October 2018, so he couldn't get into the race any sooner, he explained.
The timing left Moulton unable to meet minimum fundraising and polls requirements to make the first two rounds of the Democratic National Committee's debates, he said.
"The system that the DNC set up made it obviously difficult for anyone who got in late," he said.Â
He got a good response, but the crowds just failed to build. Not being in the debates was a major factor.
"It was epitomized by someone in the week before I got out in Iowa, who just said: 'Seth, you are exactly the person we need to beat Trump. You'd make a great president.' And he even went down the list of comparing me to all the other candidates ... But he said: 'Look, there is only 30 people here. How do we get this message out more broadly? I want to see 500 at your events to hear you so more people will get this message.'"
"I'm a fighter, I'm someone who it's hard to make me quit," Moulton added, noting in his first race for Congress — when he was an underdog in the Democratic primary against a well-known incumbent, former U.S. John Tierney — people told him to quit then as well.
It was a difficult decision this time, but Moulton said he could not see a path forward.
"Sometimes, you have to live to fight another day," he said.
Moulton has not endorsed another candidate for president, but said he "probably will."
He has heard from others in the race, including Warren and Biden, but hadn't yet heard from Sanders. He had a long conversation with Biden on foreign policy and said Biden saw him speak a few times.Â
"The conversation with Senator Warren was shorter but very friendly and I wished her luck and she asked how my family was doing, and I said: 'Well, they are doing better now,'" he joked, since he now has more free time to spend with them.
Getting back inÂ
Moulton had always said he would be running for a fourth term if he was unable to secure the Democratic nomination.
Now, the race for 6th District has attracted at least three candidates in the Democratic primary, Topsfield women's mental health advocate Jamie Zahlaway Belsito, Salem Ward 3 City Councilor Lisa Peterson and Rockport resident Nathaniel Mulcahy, who has a website announcing he is running as a progressive Democrat.
Some North Shore Democrats have said the district needs strong representation in Washington, D.C.
In her announcement, saying she would not be running for Congress, state Rep. Lori Ehrlich, D-Marblehead, noted she had built "the skeleton of a promising campaign to provide the district with the representation and clout it deserves."
Moulton dismissed the notion that no longer having Tierney's seniority in Washington — he was a nine-term incumbent — was somehow a detriment.
"And what did he do," Moulton said, returning to the theme of his first primary campaign in 2014. "He passed one bill in 18 years and he was friends with (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi, so I don't understand her (Ehrlich's) argument at all."
Ehrlich said in an interview that with the word "clout," she was not trying to rehash issues about Tierney's loss from 2014, and said she is hopeful Moulton will devote more time representing the district.
"Since he's given up his quest for higher office for now, hopefully Congressman Moulton will devote more time to the 6th District," she said.
"Like every district, we face significant challenges from housing to transportation, from healthcare to climate change. So our district's priorities are addressed in Congress, I hope he can learn to work together with the Democratic leadership that he so vehemently opposed," Ehrlich said.
Moulton said one should look at his efforts in 2018 to wrest control of the House from Republicans with his Serve America PAC that backed young veterans and other service-oriented candidates in swing districts that helped Democrats retake the House.
"I did more to help win the House of Representatives than any other Democrat in Congress. I'm not sure what bigger clout there is? I'm the vice chairman of the (House Committee on the Budget)Â on my third term. I have brought an extraordinary amount of money to the district, including a $200 million contract to General Electric, which is the first time they have actually hired people in a generation," Moulton said of the company in Lynn.
Moulton said he is not thinking about a race for U.S. senator if Warren becomes president. Recent news reports say fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III may be mulling a run for the seat held by U.S. Sen. Ed Markey.
"I'm not thinking about that all," Moulton said. "Again, I didn't run for president because I'm tired of this job. I ran for president because we have to beat Donald Trump. I love this job and I have a lot more work that we have in progress and we still want to accomplish."
In the district...
One of the knocks on U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton as he ran for president was that he was not representing the 6th District in Washington.
To rebut this point, Moulton's office release a long list of his accomplishments and legislation he's worked on, some of which are noted below:
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