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This teacher and sportswriter knows his Senate campaign is a long shot. He’s convinced he can oust Markey anyway.

Alex Rikleen says that Democrats need a new era of leaders who are unafraid to push for major reforms in the fight against authoritarianism.

Alex Rikleen speaking to a voter after a Q&A session in Shrewsbury. Jim Nachbar

December 15, 2025

6 minutes to read

As Sen. Ed Markey seeks reelection next year, voters and political commentators are focusing on his primary showdown with Rep. Seth Moulton. But a little-known third candidate is hoping to make waves in that race as well, convinced that there is a path toward an unlikely upset.

Alex Rikleen grew up in Wayland and now lives in Acton with his wife and two children. He graduated with an education degree from Boston College in 2009 and taught history for years. On the side, Rikleen wrote about fantasy sports, covering basketball and football. He pivoted in 2016 to pursue sportswriting, and since 2020 has balanced professional writing with an adjunct teaching position at Framingham State University.

Angered by the early days of the second Trump administration and the seeming lack of resistance offered by Democratic leaders, Rikleen announced his Senate campaign.

Boston.com caught up with Rikleen this week to learn more about him and his underdog campaign.

The following interview with Rikleen has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Boston.com: Tell me about the decision to launch this campaign. Was there a specific moment that really crystallized things for you?

Alex Rikleen: The moment was the Kash Patel confirmation. He was a QAnon influencer who had openly called for the FBI to be used to go after Trump’s political opponents, instead of doing the work of the FBI. That nomination was about a month after Trump’s inauguration, and the week before Democrats just went about business as usual. The Senate adjourned on a Thursday, most of the Senate went on a bipartisan trip to Germany. They came back on Tuesday.

All the Democrats voted against Patel, but they didn’t do anything out of the ordinary the week before or the day of to try to stall or block this nomination or call attention to how much of a problematic extremist he was. That was the moment, to me, when it became clear that Democrats didn’t get it, and they weren’t going to get it.

At this point, we had already seen 50501 form from nothing into a nationwide protest movement. We already had people with national audiences, on TV, in newspapers, on podcasts, calling for Democrats to do more, and they had chosen not to. I felt what was needed was to expand that pressure to primary campaigns, and specifically to primary campaigns in the Senate, in areas that lean blue. I just happened to live in a place where I can do that.

You admit that you have a lot of the same policy positions as Sen. Markey. Why should voters trust you to execute on these policies better than him?

If you’re frustrated with Democratic inaction in the Senate at large, Democrats aren’t going to change if we keep sending back the same leaders. Senator Markey is still supporting Chuck Schumer. If you want to get rid of Senate leadership, if you want them to pick a new course, you’re going to need to put in new leaders to do that.

While Senator Markey and I have similar policy positions, I think that there’s not enough recognition or discussion on the part of the senator about the structural obstacles to achieving them.

The reality of our current government is that the policy positions advocated by Senator Markey and myself, and by someone much more to the middle like Representative Moulton, none of that is meaningfully achievable, because the Supreme Court will block it. Or because it would have to be so watered down that we are fitting it into a tax bill because of the ways in which the procedure rules of the Senate are currently written.

You’re calling for some big structural reforms?

Yes. Democrats need to do everything they can to mitigate harm now. Current congressional Democrats are not doing that. Then once we get power back, our top priority has to be the structural reforms that will prevent a future authoritarian threat and also make it so that we can actually solve the problems we’ve been promising for 20-plus years and not making nearly enough progress on.

Alex Rikleen holding up a muffin while speaking in front of the Burlington ICE facility, calling attention to reports that detainees inside may have received less than 400 calories per day, the same amount of calories in a muffin. – Henry B Photography

What is happening to this country is absolutely the descent out of Democracy, out of [a] Republic and toward authoritarianism. As a history teacher, I see very clear parallels between where we are today and the current governments in Hungary and Russia. We are very clearly along that path.

How do you see yourself compared to Seth Moulton?

Seth Moulton, the only real argument that he has made for himself so far is that he is younger than Senator Markey. If that is what we are measuring by, then I guess I’m the most qualified person in this race.

When you look at the representative’s history, he is far more centrist, far more moderate, I would argue, a little bit less consistent in his views. He was seeking an endorsement from AIPAC until weeks before he gave back money from AIPAC, as one of many examples.

(Rikleen’s comments refer to reporting from Jewish Inisder about Moulton’s ties to the pro-Israel lobbying group. Moulton maintains that his decision to return money to AIPAC is unrelated to the group’s decision not to endorse him.)

It certainly makes him out of touch with Democrats in Massachusetts, and much of the state at large. There’s a reason that people like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry and Elizabeth Warren and Senator Markey have been elected to the seat. I am someone who has much more in common with the policies of those four senators than Seth Moulton does.

I’m talking to you in the wake of a deadly antisemitic attack in Australia, and there are concerns about antisemitism growing in Massachusetts as well. We’ve also seen evidence of extreme brutality in Gaza committed by the Israeli government. Do you view these things as being related? How do you see the role of a US senator in that context?

We can’t deny that there’s probably a connection there, that some of the increase in antisemitism is a reaction to Israel’s brutality. It’s a misplaced reaction, it’s an unhelpful reaction, it’s an evil reaction.

That’s a part of it, but it’s not the only part. Another reason that antisemitism is increasing is because it is being accepted more on the American political right. Nick Fuentes was invited to dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Candace Owens is constantly given attention.

There are lots of contributing factors here, and they’re all bad. As a senator, as a Jew in the public eye, my job would be to honestly recognize all of these factors and condemn all of these factors. Any act of hatred must be condemned. We need to understand why they are happening with increasing frequency so that we can better combat them.

Would you push for greater limits on supplying arms to Israel?

Yes. There are a lot of similarities between Trump and Netanyahu. Netanyahu is divisive in Israel, and there are mass protests against him. Just like Trump is damaging the, for lack of a better term, brand of America internationally, Netanyahu and the actions of his government are damaging the brand of Israel and unfortunately by association, Jews internationally. The United States has laws on the books against supplying weapons to countries that we think are committing war crimes. We need to follow our own laws.

Do you view yourself as a long shot in this race?

Sure, of course I’m a long shot. But also, I think there’s a clear path here. The UMass poll that came out recently had me at 6%, 11 months before the primary. Mamdani didn’t hit 6% until six months before his primary. So we have recent evidence of someone going from my level of support to victory in a population of about the same size.

A lot of people are receptive to this message when I can get it in front of them, and the challenge has been much more about getting this message in front of people.

Amongst Democratic primary voters, there’s still a lot of bad feelings toward Representative Moulton, especially related to his comments about the trans community, but also about other issues. There is a national movement toward changing the Democratic Party.

I’ve gotten this reaction frequently: Someone saying that they want to consider someone besides Senator Markey, but they don’t want to support Seth Moulton. People say, “I didn’t know you were in the race. I’m glad to hear about you.”

Anything else you’d like to add?

Well, I like to talk about why my campaign color is pink. When I was putting it together, my older son was being picked on in school because pink is his favorite color. Since this campaign is about standing up to bullies, I figured, what better way to support my kid and keep my kids with me while I’m on the road? I always wear a pink shirt or a pink tie anytime I’m on the trail.