G.O.P. Takes Massachusetts Senate Seat

BOSTON — Scott Brown, a little-known Republican state senator, rode an old pickup truck and a growing sense of unease among independent voters to an extraordinary upset Tuesday night when he was elected to fill the Senate seat that was long held by Edward M. Kennedy in the overwhelmingly Democratic state of Massachusetts.
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Bryce Vickmark for The New York Times

Supporters in Boston celebrated the victory of Massachusetts State Senator Scott Brown in his bid for U.S. Senate. More Photos »
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Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press

Mr. Brown spoke to reporters after voting in the special election on Tuesday in Wrentham, Mass. More Photos >

By a decisive margin, Mr. Brown defeated Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general, who had been considered a prohibitive favorite to win just over a month ago after she easily won the Democratic primary.

With 93 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Brown had 52 percent of the vote to Ms. Coakley’s 47 percent.

In her concession speech before cheering supporters, Ms. Coakley acknowledged that voters were angry and said she had hoped to deal with the concerns.

“Our mission continues, and our work goes on,” she said, echoing well-known remarks by Mr. Kennedy. “I am heartbroken at the result, as I know you are, and I know we will get up together tomorrow and continue this fight, even with this result tonight.”

The election left Democrats in Congress scrambling to salvage a bill overhauling the nation’s health care system, which the late Mr. Kennedy had called “the cause of my life.” Mr. Brown has vowed to oppose the bill, and once he takes office the Democrats will lose their filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes in the Senate.

Beyond the bill, the election of a man supported by the Tea Party movement also represented an unexpected reproach by many voters to President Obama after his first year in office, and struck fear into the hearts of Democratic lawmakers, who are already worried about their prospects later this year in the midterm elections.

Mr. Brown was able to appeal to independents who were anxious about the economy and concerned about the direction taken by Democrats, now that they control all the branches of government, both on Beacon Hill and in Washington. He rallied his supporters when he said, at the last debate, that he was not running for Mr. Kennedy’s seat but for “the people’s seat.”

That seat, held for nearly half a century by Mr. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate, will now be held by a Republican who has said he supports waterboarding as an interrogation technique for terrorism suspects; opposes a federal cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon emissions; and opposes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants unless they leave the country. It was a sharp swing of the pendulum, but even Democratic voters said they wanted the Obama administration to change direction.

“I’m hoping that it gives a message to the country,” said Marlene Connolly, 73, of North Andover, a lifelong Democrat who said she cast her first vote for a Republican on Tuesday. “I think if Massachusetts puts Brown in, it’s a message of ‘that’s enough.’ Let’s stop the giveaways and let’s get jobs going.”

Mr. Brown ran strongest in the suburbs of Boston, where the independent voters who make up a majority in Massachusetts turned out in large numbers. Ms. Coakley did best in urban areas, overwhelmingly winning in Boston and running ahead in Springfield, Worcester, Fall River and New Bedford, but her margins were not large enough to carry her to victory.

Ms. Coakley’s defeat, in a state that Mr. Obama won in 2008 with 62 percent of the vote, led to a round of finger-pointing among Democrats. Some criticized her tendency for gaffes — in a radio interview she offended Red Sox fans when she incorrectly suggested that Curt Schilling, a beloved former Red Sox pitcher, was a Yankee fan — while others criticized a lackluster, low-key campaign.

Mr. Brown presented himself as a Massachusetts Everyman, featuring the pickup truck he drives around the state in his speeches and one of his television ads, calling in to talk radio shows, and campaigning with popular local sports figures.

The implications of the election drew nationwide attention, and millions of dollars of outside spending, to the race. It transformed what many had expected to be a sleepy, low-turnout special election on a snowy day in January into a high-profile contest that appeared to draw more voters than expected to the polls. There were reports of traffic jams outside suburban polling stations, while other polling stations had to call for extra ballots.

The late surge by Mr. Brown appeared to catch Democrats by surprise, causing them to scramble in the last week and a half of the campaign and hastily schedule an appearance by Mr. Obama with Ms. Coakley on Sunday afternoon.

“Understand what’s at stake here, Massachusetts,” Mr. Obama said in his speech that day, repeatedly invoking Mr. Kennedy’s legacy. “It’s whether we’re going forwards or backwards.” He all but pleaded with voters to support Ms. Coakley, to preserve his agenda.

As voters went to the polls, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, made it clear that the president was “not pleased” with the situation Ms. Coakley found herself in. “He was both surprised and frustrated,” Mr. Gibbs said.

Although the race has riveted the attention of the nation largely because it was seen as contributing to the success or defeat of the health care bill, the potency of the issue for voters here was difficult to gauge. That is because Massachusetts already has near-universal health coverage, thanks to a law passed when Mitt Romney, a Republican, was governor.

Thus Massachusetts is one of the few states where the benefits promised by the national bill were expected to have little effect on how many of its citizens got coverage, making it an unlikely place for a referendum on the health care bill.

Although Mr. Brown vowed to scuttle the current bill, he voted for the Massachusetts health care bill, which was a model for it. He argued that the national bill would be costly and result in Medicare cuts for the elderly — in effect that some residents of Massachusetts stood to lose more than they would gain.

The closeness of the race drew both opponents and supporters of health care to the polls.

“I don’t like that the health care bill is being ramrodded through, and I am incensed that a senator was able to have his state exempted from the cost,” said Robert Rivard, 67, a retired mechanical engineer in Leicester who is an independent. “As much as I support Brown, it is also a statement about what I don’t want.”

But Michael Barry, a 23-year-old Democrat from Hopkinton, said that he came to the polls to try to save the health care bill. “I voted for Coakley because I didn’t want to disrupt the 60-40 vote for health care,” said Mr. Barry, a software engineer. “I thought it was a shoo-in a few weeks ago and might not have come out today.”

On Capitol Hill, the fate of the health care legislation was highly uncertain as Democratic leaders quickly gathered to plot strategy in the wake of the Republican victory.

Sentiment about how to proceed was mixed, with several House lawmakers expressing wariness about accepting a Senate-passed plan due to their deep reservations about it. But top officials said that approach may be the party’s best alternative and most House members said they still believed it was crucial that Democrats pass a plan.

“It is important for us to pass legislation,” said Representative Baron Hill, a conservative Democrat from Indiana.