Senate candidate and Rep. Seth Moulton brought his campaign to Swampscott on Saturday, meeting with residents and answering questions during a community meet-and-greet.

Moulton spoke at length to a crowd before taking questions and speaking with guests one-on-one.

“You can’t represent people if you don’t hear their concerns,” Moulton said of the purpose of the event. “People have tough questions right now and deserve honest answers.”

Moulton currently serves in the House of Representatives for the Massachusetts 6th Congressional District. He is running against incumbent Sen. Ed Markey for the Democratic nomination. In his campaign against Markey, Moulton has emphasized his efforts to create face-to-face opportunities with voters across Massachusetts.

Moulton said Saturday the reason he is running is because he believes in public service over self service.

“I’m not running against Ed Markey because I fundamentally disagree with his policies,” said Moulton. “I’m running against the idea that a Washington establishment would hang on to a 50-year incumbent at age 80…And I’m running against the idea that we don’t need to change when the world is changing all around us.”

Moulton said the time has come for a new generation of leaders to take on challenges and opportunities at hand.

“In the last debate (Markey) talked about all of the things he’s done in the past,” said Moulton. “I said ‘Senator, I appreciate that, but it’s not enough.’

On affordability, Moulton highlighted his proposal to develop high-speed rail connecting the Boston area with Springfield. He said the project could help spur the construction of hundreds of thousands of new housing units, including affordable housing.

“We’ve got to have new plans for the future,” said Moulton. “That’s why I’m talking about making health care a human right, having medicare available for everybody who wants it.”

Moulton also said universal pre-kindergarten should be a priority, arguing that it would give families access to early education services regardless of income.

He further emphasized the need for stronger regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly its use on social media platforms.

“After seeing how we completely fail to regulate social media so that it does real harm to our kids, we have to make sure we can effectively regulate AI so that it’s safe,” said Moulton. “And you can’t regulate something that you don’t understand.”

As for his campaign, Moulton said things have been going well. While acknowledging that public polling has been scattered, he said internal campaign polling shows the race within a few percentage points.

Early voting opened Saturday, giving voters across the state their first opportunity to cast ballots ahead of the Tuesday, September 1 primary.

Moulton pointed to his previous congressional campaign as an example of his ability to overcome a polling deficit. He said polls showed him trailing by double digits just one week before that election.

“The old democratic establishment turned up against me that time as well, and guess what, we won,” said Moulton.

A new poll released on Thursday, August 20 by WCVB and the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows Markey with 60% of respondents’ votes, compared to Moulton’s 32%.

Moulton told attendees that turnout on September 1 will be crucial, emphasizing that voter participation and grassroots involvement can drive change.

“If you’re out there on the ground, as my team is every day. There is tremendous energy for change,” said Moulton. “Even the polling shows that our supporters are much more energized than (Markey’s.)”

He added that many potential voters remain undecided about which candidate they will support.

“It’s all about the momentum in the end,” he said. “It’s all about who you get to turn out.

Moulton urged supporters to knock on doors, make phone calls and spread the word about his campaign as the primary approaches.

“That is absolutely critical in these final days,” said Moulton. “Who shows up…That is going to decide the result. It could go either way at this point. We’ve got better ads, we’ve got better social media presence and we’ve got more volunteers across the Commonwealth, but we’ve got to translate that into the actual vote.”