GOP EPIC UPSET: Coakley Concedes, Scott Brown Wins Kennedy Senate Seat

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brown[Earlier updates below.] 9:16 p.m. — Coakley has conceded in a call to Scott Brown, according to a Brown aide.

In the epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley, leaving President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul in doubt and marring the end of his first year in office. The loss by the once-favored Coakley for the seat that the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy held for nearly half a century signals big political problems for the president’s party this fall when House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates are on the ballot nationwide.

More immediately, Brown will become the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to block the president’s health care legislation and the rest of Obama’s agenda. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to thwart Republican filibusters.

9:09 p.m. — At least Coakley won her hometown of North Adams, 2,854-965.

9:07 p.m. — Bad news for Coakley from Woburn: The Brown margin there is wider than the margin for Romney against O’Brien in 2002. More bad news from Fall River, a traditional Democratic stronghold: Coakley wins there but with several thousand fewer votes than in 2002 and 2006.

8:45 p.m. — A bad omen for Coakley in Boston’s western suburbs? Take the town of Ashland, where Brown won 3,467-2,897. That’s a turnaround from Democratic Governor Deval Patrick’s 3,118-2,329 victory over Kerry Healey in 2006. And similar to Republican Governor Mitt Romney’s 3,734-2,295 win over Shannon O’Brien in 2002.

8:33 p.m. — Brown maintains early lead, 52 percent to 47 percent, with 8 percent of precincts reporting.

8:28 p.m. — “The discussion outside is worrisome,” said State Representative Peter J. Koutoujian, a Waltham Democrat who was at the Coakley party. But Koutoujian said he had been making phone calls for Coakley earlier in the day and the positive response he had gotten “made me feel better about Martha’s pending victory.”

8:24 p.m. — Brown jumps to an early lead, 52 percent to 47 percent, but that’s just with 4 percent of precincts reporting.

8:22 p.m. — Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is expecting Brown to win. “He did what I couldn’t do. It looks like he’s going to win a seat for Massachusetts in the US Senate, and I congratulate him. He’s been a strong candidate, run a good campaign, and he has made it very clear that the arrogance in Washington is being rejected by the people of Massachusetts and across the country.”

8:14 p.m. — The mood at the Coakley party is subdued. A few dozen people are snacking on hors d’oeuvres and checking their Blackberries.

8:10 p.m. — At Coakley’s party in a giant ballroom at Sheraton Boston Hotel, the stage is draped with a huge American flag, Coakley’s name is projected on one wall, and a band is playing. Aides said Coakley is in a room at the downtown hotel, awaiting results from the election.

8:07 p.m. — The mood is upbeat in the packed ballroom where Brown supporters are gathering, with red, white, and blue balloons poised for a triumphant balloon drop in nets on the ceiling.

8:03 p.m. — At the Park Plaza ballroom where Brown supporters are gathering, senior Brown adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told NECN that the turning point for Brown was the Dec. 30 “JFK ad” which put the campaign on the map. “After that, it was like riding a rocket ship for 2 ½ to 3 weeks till today,” he said.

8:01 p.m. — Polls are closing around the state in the extraordinary race for US Senate featuring Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Martha Coakley. It’s all over but the counting continues.

7:57 p.m. — Galvin estimates turnout could hit the same number as turnout in the 2006 gubernatorial campaign between Deval Patrick and Kerry Healey: 57 or 58 percent.

7:51 p.m. — With polls closing in just a few minutes, Secretary of State William Galvin says turnout is “high everywhere” in the too-close-to-call special election for US Senate.

{Agencies/Boston Globe/Metro Desk/Matzav.com Newscenter}


16 COMMENTS

  1. With all the anti Coakley time Fox News spent on this I am sure they will be all smiles come this evening and tomorrow morning if these results hold up

  2. THANK YOU MASSACHUSETTS FOR SCOTT BROWN AND ALL YOUR SUPPORT TO GET HIM ACROSS THE FINISH TIME.AS I SIT HERE PECKING AT KEYBOARD LISTENING TO SCOTT BROWNS ACCEPTANCE SPEECH,I’M AMAZED AT THIS MASSACHUSETTS MIRACLE. SCOTT IS A PATRIOT AND WILL ROCK THE POLITICAL PROCESS IN WASHINGTON. SO NOW A LITTLE HUMOR FOR MY LIBERAL READERS.

    I JUST TURNED ON MY LIGHT AND A PACK OF LOOOOOSER LIBERALS JUST RAN ACROSS THE KITCHEN FLOOR.

  3. WHo cares!!!?? It is all yad Hashem. if hashem wanted him to win, he would have won anyway no matter what Coakley did. the whol thing is ridiculous. where is the belief in Hashem?!

  4. The son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy says a Republican victory in the race for his father’s Senate seat is a sign that the American public is out for “blood.”

    As election returns came in Tuesday night, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) said it’s clear that voters wanted “a whipping boy” for all the lost jobs and foreclosed homes.

    “It’s like in Roman times they’d be trotted out to the coliseum and the lions would be brought out,” Kennedy told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday night. “I mean, they’re wanting blood and they’re not getting it so they want to protest and, you know, you can’t blame them. But frankly, the fact is we inherited this mess and it’s becoming ours.”

    Kennedy did not fully wade into the battle for the seat, he said, he “never wanted anyone to think for a moment” that it was his family’s seat.

    “It wasn’t my dad’s seat, it was Massachusetts’s seat,” Kennedy said. “My dad was honored to occupy it every six years when the people of Massachusetts voted him in again.”

    But Kennedy also offered a scathing review of Democrats and perhaps a back-handed jab at Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, whom many in the party are blaming for the loss of a seat Kennedy’s father held for more than four decades.

    While he said that the swing toward Republican Scott Brown represented a “general protest vote,” he also said that each candidate has an obligation to do his best to make his case.

    “[I]t’s just a case where you gotta make your own mark and sell the policies, and I think the people of Massachusetts are receptive to the Democratic progressive politics but, you know, it has to be sold,” Kennedy said.

    “This is about messaging,” he said. “You gotta be on your ‘A’ game, you gotta be a good politician, you gotta get out there and tell them the story and once they know, voters will respond.”

    Still, he said that Democrats have never been very helpful in backing up candidates with a unified message.

    “I belong to an unorganized party,” he said. “It’s the Democratic party. You know, that’s the nature of the beast. Deal with it.”

  5. FYI #3, it shows how little you know. Scott Brown IS a liberal. A Liberal Republican (like mitt romney, rudy giuliani and abraham lincoln)

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