Pat Dollard

Tweet

70% of the votes were counted, Brown is ahead 7 points. Martha Coakley concedes to Brown over the phone mere minutes ago. Updates ASAP.

FOX News:

In a victory few thought possible just a month ago, Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley Tuesday in the race for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy — a win that could grind President Obama’s agenda to a halt and portend huge losses for Democrats in the November midterms.

Coakley has called Brown to concede. With 84 percent of precincts reporting, returns show Brown leading Coakley 52-47 percent. Independent candidate Joseph Kennedy was pulling 1 percent.

The victory marks a stunning upset. The state senator whose campaign surged in the final weeks of the race becomes the first Republican to be elected to the Senate from the Bay State since 1972.

He also breaks the Democrats’ 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority in Washington, posing big problems for Obama’s agenda. Most immediately, Brown’s win sends Democrats into a scramble to pass health care reform before he arrives in Washington. Democrats were already weighing options for how to fast-track the bill before polls closed Tuesday.

Considering how much was on the line, Brown’s late-in-the-game surge commanded the attention of the Democratic Party establishment, which dispatched top officials over the past week to try to keep the seat formerly held by Kennedy in Democratic hands. Coakley, the state attorney general, was thought to be a shoo-in for the seat until Brown starting gaining rapidly in the polls.

Voter interest in the race for U.S. Senate seemed high throughout the day. Poll workers reported a steady stream of voters at the ballot box despite the snow. Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin was predicting turnout could be as high as 50 percent.

The two candidates are far apart on the issues, but even in this heavily Democratic state Brown built an insurgent campaign that started resonating with voters at just the right time.

Democrats outnumber Republicans 3-to-1 in the state — 37 percent of registered voters are Democrats, 12 percent are Republicans and 51 percent are unaffiliated. Obama won the state by 26 percentage points in the 2008 presidential election.

Brown’s campaign marked an upset just by being as competitive as it was against Coakley’s.

The campaigns had been inundated with help from outside the state. Obama and former President Bill Clinton both came to campaign rallies for Coakley, and Obama appeared in a television ad. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., pitched in by having his campaign team make phone calls to get people out to the polls.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington also “emptied out the building” of staff to send nearly everyone to Massachusetts to help Brown get out the vote. The NRSC reportedly quietly shifted $500,000 to help Brown’s campaign in the last two weeks.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, contacted his extensive and valuable fundraising lists on behalf of Brown last week. Independent tea party organizations were also offering phone banking support to Brown.

Lt. Gov. Tim Murray noted that the race closed its 15-point gap in recent weeks because of the increased attention but Republicans have typically run close races in the state despite a 3-1 Democratic to Republican voter registration gap.

“You can’t take any election for granted in Massachusetts, probably, or anywhere around the country these days,” he said.

Indeed, the swift rise of Brown, a relatively low-profile Republican state senator, in his race against the state attorney general has spooked Democrats who had considered the seat one of their most reliable.

Kennedy, who died in August, held the post for 47 years.

Brown tried to turn Democrats’ expectation of an easy win to his advantage, proclaiming, “It’s not the Kennedy seat, it’s the people’s seat.”

The third candidate, Joseph Kennedy, a Libertarian running as an independent, said he’s been bombarded with e-mails from Brown supporters urging him to drop out and endorse the Republican. Kennedy, who was polling in the single digits and is no relation to the late senator, said he’s staying in.

———————

BOSTON (AP) – In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in a U.S. Senate election Tuesday that left President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul in doubt and marred 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 signaled 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.