Seth Moulton

Private sector career

After graduate school, he worked for one year as managing director of the Texas Central Railway, a transportation firm. In 2011, Moulton and a graduate-school classmate founded Eastern Healthcare Partners. The company raised investor funds and drafted a partnership agreement with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, but in October 2014, the Boston Globe reported that by the time Moulton ran for Congress, EHP had no revenue, was still incubating, and had closed its only Massachusetts office.

Energy and environmental policy

Moulton supports the expansion of renewable energy and the diversification of the energy grid. He is supportive of carbon pricing and banning fossil fuel extraction on federal lands. Moulton voted in favor of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which included historic funding into renewable energy innovation and implementation. Moulton is also a supporter of nuclear energy. In a 2019 interview, he called nuclear energy "a safe, good investment...for the future of our country." He has also expressed support for the expansion of research and development for fusion power.

Gun control

On June 15, 2016, Moulton appeared on the cover of the New York Daily News with the headline "No Civilian Should Own This Gun", in reference to semi-automatic assault weapons. Moulton penned an opinion piece promoting gun control, including the statement: "There's simply no reason for a civilian to own a military-style assault weapon. It's no different than why we outlaw civilian ownership of rockets and landmines."

Military and foreign policy

Moulton opposed sending U.S. troops back to Iraq in 2014. He also supported strengthening NATO against Russia and keeping troops in Afghanistan temporarily to execute a counterterrorist mission in 2019.

In a November 2022 Hudson Institute event, Moulton stated "Every new weapons system should have sort of an AI component or capability or the ability to integrate that, because the reality is that this is the future of warfare."

Moulton criticized President Joe Biden for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, citing the chaotic evacuation of Afghans who had supported the U.S. in the effort to fight terrorism. In June 2025, Moulton co-signed a letter led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, asking Trump to comply with the TikTok divest-or-ban law and not grant further extensions to the deadline.

In October 2025, Moulton announced he would be returning donations from AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying group, citing its support for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Jewish Insider reported that he wanted AIPAC's endorsement for the 2026 Senate race and spurned it after failing to secure the endorsement. However, Moulton dismissed the claim, stating that the lack of endorsement did not affect his decision. Moulton supported US strikes on Iran in the Twelve-Day War.

Presidents

Donald Trump

In a March 2016 interview, Moulton compared the rise of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s. Moulton said that, to understand how an educated society "can elect a demagogue", voters should read about how the German people elected Hitler in the early 20th century.

Moulton walked out of President Trump's 2020 State of the Union address, citing the part of the address about the administration's contributions to the military and service members. Moulton said: "Trump—a draft dodger who has mocked Senator John McCain, Gold Star families, and soldiers with traumatic brain injury—started talking about the good he has done for our military."

Joe Biden

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Moulton endorsed Joe Biden and campaigned for him in Iowa and New Hampshire after ending his own bid for the Democratic nomination. On July 4, 2024, Moulton was the third U.S. representative to call for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 United States presidential election. On July 19, 2024, Moulton published an Op-Ed in the Boston Globe elaborating on President Joe Biden's mental decline and the need for a new Democratic Party nominee in 2024. Moulton explained, "Recently, I saw [President Biden] in a small group at Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. For the first time, he didn’t seem to recognize me. Of course, that can happen as anyone ages, but as I watched [Biden's] disastrous debate a few weeks ago, I have to admit that what I saw in Normandy was part of a deeper problem."

Social issues

Moulton supports abortion rights and same-sex marriage. He supports legal immigration and advocates for immigration reform, but opposes illegal immigration and has called it "something we have to confront".

In August 2023, Moulton was one of nine House Democrats who voted in favor of a Republican-led amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) prohibiting the teaching of "race-based theories" in schools operated by the Department of Defense Education Activity, introduced by Rep. Chip Roy. It was opposed by most Democrats as part of a broader Republican effort to target so-called "Critical Race Theory".

Animal welfare

Moulton endorsed a 2016 Massachusetts ballot measure, Question 3, designed to protect the welfare of farmed animals. The measure prohibited Massachusetts farmers from "knowingly cause any covered animal to be confined in a cruel manner" and prohibited the sale of eggs or meat from animals that did not meet the standards.

In 2022, Moulton was among a bipartisan group of 19 members of Congress who called on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to enact federal protections for cephalopods (such as octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish) used in laboratory research and to update federal animal welfare policies to include these species, and he helped lead congressional letters to NIH and HHS reiterating these requests.

Cannabis

Moulton has acknowledged having used cannabis and supports its legalization, saying, "If you're not buying your marijuana from a dealer who sells heroin, who sells opioids, it's much less likely to be a gateway drug. The problem is now that it operates in the shadows. There's no control whatsoever. Someone goes and buys an edible, for example, there's no regulation about what's in that. It's like moonshine under Prohibition."

Transgender issues

In 2022 and 2023, Moulton cosponsored the Transgender Bill of Rights and voted in favor of the Equality Act.

Following Kamala Harris's loss to Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, Moulton expressed opposition to transgender participation in girls' sports. Moulton commented: "'I have two little girls, I don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I'm supposed to be afraid to say that'". Following his remarks, his campaign manager, Matt Chilliak, resigned in protest, and his comments were condemned by Salem mayor Dominick Pangallo, Massachusetts state Rep. Manny Cruz, the vice-chair of the Salem School Committee, and Governor Maura Healey. He also faced protest from constituents. Moulton released a response on November 8, 2024 defending his statement.

Moulton said in a follow-up interview that it was "kind of weird" to include pronouns after signatures in emails. He later asserted that Trump's policies would be "extremely harmful" to transgender children and that transgender children "deserve our support", but still described Democrats as "out of touch" on transgender issues. On November 13, 2024 the Salem Democratic City Committee vowed to find someone to run against Moulton in the Democratic primaries for the 2026 midterm elections due to his comments, with the chair of the local Democratic committee in Salem referring to him in an email as a "cooperator" in "Nazi times." On November 17, hundreds of people in Salem gathered at his office in the town at a rally held in protest at his remarks, co-organized by city councillor Kyle Davis.

On November 25, 2024 Moulton said in an interview with the Rolling Stone that the media, in particular The New York Times, had misrepresented his position on transgender issues following the election. Moulton clarified that he still supports transgender rights, but simply wanted Democrats to be more open to talking about the issue. Moulton additionally said that he was not proposing that Democrats should ban transgender women from women's sports, but instead just "wanted [Democrats] to have a message to fight back against attacks". He also described Nancy Mace's attacks on transgender rights following the election as "abhorrent".

In January 2025 Moulton voted against the "Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act" which would have banned trans women and girls from competing in women's sports nationwide, commenting that the bill was "too extreme". Moulton condemned Donald Trump's Executive Order 14168, but said the Democratic Party should "stop denying that this is an issue" and "have a response". In September 2025, Moulton co-sponsored the 988 LGBTQ+ Youth Access Act of 2025, a House bill seeking to restore funding to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, specifically for LGBTQ+ services.

In November 2025, after announcing his bid for the US Senate, Moulton said he supported trans rights and vowed to "support and lead legislation like the Transgender Bill of Rights" if he is elected to the Senate. Moulton also said that there "is no room in the Democratic Party for complete opposition to trans rights" and he vowed to "fight to pass full federal LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination policies" and support the Equality Act. Moulton mentioned that he had listened to feedback from people who "were hurt by how [he] framed [his] comments in the past about the best way to protect the trans community". Moulton reiterated that his "intent has always been to push our party to have honest, tough conversations so we can fight back more effectively against the far-right attacks on LGBTQ Americans. I remain committed to protecting the rights and dignity of transgender Americans".

In August 2026, when his Democratic primary opponent Ed Markey, attacked Moulton for abandoning trans children with his earlier remarks, Moulton accused Markey of being "just like the Republicans" for "injecting a divisive social issue into the primary campaign". Moulton also said that despite his previous apology, he was "not sorry for the substance of his earlier remarks".