2012 United States Senate election in Massachusetts
The 2012 United States Senate election in Massachusetts was held in Massachusetts on November 6, 2012, Democrat Elizabeth Warren defeated incumbent Republican Senator Scott Brown. This election was held concurrently with the U.S. presidential election and elections to the U.S. Senate in other states, as well as elections to the House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
For related races, see 2012 United States Senate elections.
Brown ran for re-election to a first full term. He had been elected in a special election in 2010 following the death of incumbent Democratic senator Ted Kennedy. Brown was unopposed in the Republican primary. For the Democrats, an initial wide field of prospective candidates narrowed after the entry of Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren, the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren clinched near-unanimous party support, with all but one of the other Democratic candidates withdrawing following her entrance. After winning her party's nomination, eliminating any need for a primary, she faced Brown in the general election.
The election was one of the most-followed races in 2012 and cost approximately $82 million, which made it the most expensive election in Massachusetts history and the second-most expensive in the entire 2012 election cycle, next to the presidential race; this was despite the two candidates' having agreed not to allow outside money to influence the race. Opinion polling indicated a close race for much of the campaign, though Warren opened up a small but consistent lead in the final few weeks. She went on to defeat Brown by over 236,000 votes, 54% to 46%. Despite his loss, Brown received 8.6% more of the state vote than Republican former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney did in the concurrent presidential election. Brown was the only incumbent senator to lose a general election in 2012. He later moved to New Hampshire where he ran for U.S. Senate and lost in 2014.
Background[edit]
Democratic U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy was re-elected in 2006, and died on August 25, 2009, from a malignant brain tumor.[1] On September 24, 2009, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick appointed longtime friend of Kennedy and former Democratic National Committee chairman Paul G. Kirk to succeed Kennedy until a special election could be held.[2] Kirk's appointment was especially controversial, as the governor's ability to appoint an interim senator was removed during the Romney administration by the Democratic-controlled legislature, as a precaution if senator and presidential nominee John Kerry was elected president in 2004. Laws surrounding Senate appointment were quickly changed following Kennedy's death.[3] The Massachusetts Republican Party sued in an attempt to halt Kirk's appointment, but it was rejected by Suffolk Superior Court Judge Thomas Connolly.[4]
In the special election held on January 19, 2010, Republican state senator Scott Brown defeated Democratic state attorney general Martha Coakley in an upset victory.[5] Brown thus became the first Republican to be elected from Massachusetts to the United States Senate since Edward Brooke in 1972, and he began serving the remainder of Kennedy's term on February 4, 2010.[6][7]
General election[edit]
Campaign[edit]
On September 14, 2011, Warren declared her intention to run for the Democratic nomination for the 2012 election in Massachusetts for the United States Senate. The seat had been won by Republican Scott Brown in a 2010 special election after the death of Ted Kennedy.[34][35]
Warren won the Democratic nomination on June 2, 2012, at the state Democratic convention with a record 95.77% of the votes of delegates.[11] She was endorsed by the Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick.[36] Warren and her opponent Scott Brown agreed to engage in four televised debates, including one with a consortium of media outlets in Springfield and one on WBZ-TV in Boston.[37]
Aftermath[edit]
The People's Pledge was a popular concept, which Common Cause proposed being implemented in other races. The pledge also resulted in fewer attack ads on the airwaves.[230]
Less than two months after the election, President Barack Obama nominated Senator John Kerry to become United States Secretary of State. Kerry was sworn in on February 1, making newly inaugurated Warren the state's senior Senator, and the Senate's most-junior senior senator.[231] In the special election to replace Kerry the following year, Democratic nominee Ed Markey asked his Republican rival Gabriel E. Gomez to sign a similar pledge with him, although Gomez refused.[232]
The election was a critical event in both candidates' political careers, with Warren becoming a political icon after entering the Senate, and being drafted to run for president in 2016 and eventually running in 2020.[233] After the election loss, Brown was considered the most prominent Republican in Massachusetts and heavily favored to run in the special Senate election the following year or for governor in 2014,[6][234] though he declined to do either.[235][236] He instead moved to New Hampshire and ran for the Senate there in 2014 against Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen.[237] He lost, 51% to 48%, becoming the first male candidate to lose two Senate races to female candidates.[238]