In a stunning upset, Republican Scott Brown has won the Massachusetts Senate race, making him the first Republican senator to represent the state in 30 years. Brown will fill the seat left vacant after veteran Senator Edward Kennedy, who held the seat for 47 years, died in August.
Until just a few weeks ago, Democrat Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general, was the front-runner with a commanding lead over Brown, a state senator from Wrentham. Polls indicated Coakley's campaign was facing trouble last week as Brown surged ahead for the first time during the campaign. The White House scrambled to save the Senate’s Democratic supermajority, and many of the party’s most influential leaders hit the campaign trail on Coakley’s behalf.
President Obama flew out to speak at a campaign rally over the weekend and appeared in a commercial supporting Coakley. Whether the loss was a case of too little too late or a referendum on Obama’s leadership over the past year is the subject of much debate. Even before election results were in, Democrats were trying to deflect any blame for the defeat. The Coakley campaign said help did not come soon enough and released a memo attributing the loss to national Democrats, who quickly fired back, stating they became involved weeks ago, as soon as they were told there was an issue. They said Coakley should have been aware she was slipping in the polls much earlier. CBS News reported that a senior White House official said of the Coakley campaign, “This is the worst debacle in American political history,” calling it “political malpractice.”
One thing is undisputed: the loss has sent a shockwave through the Democratic Party who once considered the seat untouchable. The election could signal dire implications for the mid-term elections looming in November. Brown’s win was decisive; he garnered 52 percent of the vote compared to Coakley’s 47 percent. Independent Joseph Kennedy, who is no relation to the well-known Kennedy family, plucked away one percent of the vote. Such a victory was considered unfathomable in the staunchly blue state where only 12 percent of voters are Republican, 37 percent are Democrat, and 51 percent are Independent.
Voters turned out in large numbers to send Washington a message Tuesday. Massachusetts had the highest turnout for a non-presidential election since 1990. Brown’s victory is even more stunning when coupled with the fact that Obama won the state by 26 percentage points in the 2008 presidential election. Time will tell if this is a warning the Democrats should heed. For now, Brown told supporters at his watch party there could be more trouble ahead for the Democratic Party.
"When there's trouble in Massachusetts, there's trouble everywhere, and they know it," he said.
When Brown is seated, he will become the 41st vote in the 100-member senate, breaking the filibuster-proof Democratic stronghold and putting the Obama agenda at risk. He will complete Kennedy’s unfinished term and be eligible for re-election in 2012.
