2010 United States Senate special election in Massachusetts
The 2010 United States Senate special election in Massachusetts was a special election held on January 19, 2010, in order to fill the Massachusetts Class I United States Senate seat for the remainder of the term ending January 3, 2013. It was won by Republican candidate Scott Brown.
For related races, see 2010 United States Senate elections.
The vacancy that prompted the special election was created by the death of Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy on August 25, 2009. Kennedy had served as a U.S. senator since 1962, having been elected in a special election to fill the vacancy created when his brother John F. Kennedy was elected president of the United States in 1960. The seat was held until the election by an appointee, Senator Paul Kirk, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who was not a candidate in the election to complete the term. This was the first open seat U.S. senate election in Massachusetts since 1984 and the first in this seat since 1962 where Ted Kennedy was first elected.
A party primary election determining the winners of party nominations was held on December 8, 2009.[1][2] The Democratic Party nominated Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts attorney general; the Republican Party nominated Scott Brown, a Massachusetts state senator. The race drew national attention due to Brown's unexpectedly closing the gap and running even with, or ahead of, Coakley in independent and internal polling in the last few days of the campaign.[3][4]
Polls closed at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. At 9:06 p.m., BNO News projected Brown as the winner of the race.[5] At 9:13 p.m., The Boston Globe reported that Coakley telephoned Brown and conceded her defeat in the election.[6] As a result of the election, the Republicans would control 41 seats in the United States Senate, enough to successfully make the Senate filibuster happen.[7] Although Democrats would retain control of both houses of Congress until January 2011, Brown's victory would greatly affect their political plans, most notably for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, though the legislation was signed into law two months later.[8][9]
With his victory, Brown became the first Republican to win this seat since 1946, and the first to win either Massachusetts Senate seat since 1972. Indeed, he was the first Massachusetts Republican to be elected to Congress since Peter Blute and Peter Torkildsen won reelection to the House in 1994. As of 2023, this is the last congressional election in Massachusetts won by a Republican. The only Massachusetts congressional Republican throughout his whole Senate tenure, Brown lost his bid for a full term in 2012; he later moved to New Hampshire where he unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in 2014. This election was the first time since 1946 that the winner of Massachusetts's Class 1 Senate seat was not a member of the Kennedy family.
Background[edit]
Timeline[edit]
Massachusetts law requires a special election to be held on a Tuesday, no fewer than 145 days, nor more than 160 days from the date of office vacancy, on a date determined by the governor. That range placed the election date between January 17 and February 1, 2010.[1][10][11] Massachusetts law specifies that a party primary shall be held the sixth Tuesday before the general election.[12] On August 28, 2009, Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin presented the dates January 19 and 26, 2010, after meetings with State House Speaker Robert DeLeo, State Senate President Therese Murray, and aides to Governor Deval Patrick. Patrick was legally required to select one of these two dates. A January 19 election would require the primary to be held on December 8, while a January 26 election would have required a December 15 primary.[1] Republican State Representative Karyn Polito suggested on August 28, 2009, that, because the possible election dates overlap the holiday season, the law ought to be rewritten to allow the special election to be held on November 3, 2009, to coincide with other elections in the state.[13]
Patrick stated on August 29, 2009, that he wanted to honor a request by Kennedy that any appointee to the seat not run, and that he would address the issue of the election date "after we have finished this period of respectful grief."[13] On August 31, 2009, Patrick scheduled the special election for January 19, 2010, with the primary elections on December 8, 2009. For party primary candidates, completed nomination papers with certified signatures were required to be filed by the close of business, November 3, 2009. Non-party candidates had a December 8, 2009, filing deadline.[2][14][15]
Qualifications[edit]
A senator must, by the date of inauguration, be at least thirty years old, a U.S. citizen for at least nine years, and a state inhabitant of the state wishing to represent.[16] In Massachusetts, candidates for the U.S. Senate must file nomination papers with certified signatures of 10,000 Massachusetts voters, by deadlines established by the Secretary of the Commonwealth.[17] A candidate for nomination in a party's special primary election must have been an enrolled member of the party, through filing as a member of that party with the Secretary of the Commonwealth using a certificate of voter registration, for the 90 days preceding the filing deadline, unless the candidate is a newly registered voter. The candidate additionally must not have been enrolled in any other party in the prior year.[18]
Independent or third party candidates had until December 8, 2009, to submit nomination papers for signature certification.[14]