Blogging the Massachusetts Senate Race

Democrats Already Regrouping | 11:41 p.m. Along with the hand-wringing by Democrats tonight in Washington, we’re told that there also was a fair bit of dialing. On the telephone, that is, as party leaders placed calls to some of the most vulnerable Democrats in the House and Senate.

Their goal? Try to halt any party switching, which already has eaten into the Democratic majority. Head-hunters also are looking at some Democrats, urging them to consider leaving behind the hassle of seeking re-election in this challenging environment to join K Street or lead an association. Already, Representative Earl Pomeroy, Democrat of North Dakota, is being eyed to lead the American Council of Life Insurers.

One More Take | 10:58 p.m. From Peter Baker, a White House correspondent:

The defeat, of course, is a blow for Democrats in Massachusetts. But they bear more than a little of the blame themselves. After all, Senator Edward M. Kennedy led the charge to change state law in 2004 to strip the governor of the power to appoint a senator until the next regular election. Why? In case Senator John Kerry won the presidential race that year. Democrats did not want Mitt Romney, the Republican governor, to appoint a successor to Mr. Kerry. It turned out to be a moot point – until tonight.

Brown’s Promise | 10:53 p.m. From Katie Zezima at the Republican’s campaign headquarters: “I hope they’re paying close attention because tonight the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken,” Mr Brown told his supporters. “From the Berkshires to Boston, from Springfield to Cape Cod the voters of this Commonwealth defied the odds and the experts. Tonight the independent majority has delivered a great victory.”

“I am ready to go to Washington without delay,” he said.

41 | 10:30 p.m. As Senator-elect Scott Brown gives his victory speech, supporters in the crowd shout “41, 41,” alluding to his vow to add his vote in the Senate to those in the Republican minority who want to thwart the Senate Democrats’ ability to avoid a filibuster on health care legislation.

What’s Next for Demcrats? | 10:30 p.m. The implications for tonight’s outcome will be dissected for days to come. And the results will haunt the Democrats for much longer. Party leaders are urging against finger-pointing, with little immediate success.

Soon, the discussion will turn away from Massachusetts.

But to understand one side of what happened here, we caught up with Celinda Lake, the pollster for Ms. Coakley. She touched off a bit of a furor earlier today when she said that the campaign did not have enough money to conduct polls and did not know that Mr. Brown was surging until it was too late.

Eric Schultz, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, dismissed that critique as “categorically not true.”

As Ms. Lake walked through the Sheraton Boston Hotel, where Ms. Coakley just finished delivering her concession speech, we stopped her for an interview. Here is a portion of that conversation.

Q. Was there really no money for tracking polls?

A. “We were short of money at the end of December and early January. We would have been up on the air and we would have been tracking if we had more money.”

Q. But the Democrats control the levers of government in Washington. Why wasn’t more money available? She had more money than her opponent at the end of last year, right?

A.: “She ended the year with $600,000 cash on hand, but they needed the money for ads. We still weren’t going up on the air with ads then. It costs a million here to have even a decent buy. This is a very expensive media state.”

Q. So who is to blame for Ms. Coakley’s defeat?

A. “I don’t just blame the national situation. I think Martha and the campaign should have been raising more money, too. Everybody deserves some blame here.”

“The much bigger issue is recognizing the mood of the voters and really understanding what we should do in the next five months, so that we don’t face a tsunami in November 2010.”

Q. People assume Democrats should win in Massachusetts. Are they wrong?

A. “The National Democratic Senatorial Committee never understood how hard it is in Massachusetts. They thought it was just the bluest of blue states. It’s Ted Kennedy’s seat. They didn’t understand how hard it is to elect a woman here, they didn’t understand how ornery the independents are. They didn’t understand that it isn’t that blue. You’ve got previous Republican governors, not just one anomaly – Jane Swift, Romney, Weld.”

Q. So what has been learned from this race?

A. “There are a lot of people in Washington underestimating what the mood is like out in the real world and how angry people are, how tough this economy is, how much people think that the Democrats have not delivered the change they promised and how much people want that change and we better deliver on it.”

Q. Did the visit on Sunday by President Obama help?

A. “At that point we needed to get out the base and he delivered a fantastic message. But we need that Wall Street message for the next five months.”

Cheers and Boos from the Brown Headquarters | 10:13 p.m. From Katie Zezima at the Republican candidate’s victory gala: The crowd booed while Ms. Coakley was giving her concession speech. Just before, Mr. Brown’s daughter, Ayla, had been singing and announced: “Ladies and gentlemen, Martha Coakley has just conceded the race. Scott Brown is your next United States senator.”

Coakley Concession Speech | 10:12 p.m. The Democratic candidate gives her speech, in defeat, and says she takes full blame for her loss. But at the end, she invokes the words of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, saying the dream never dies.

Presidential Call | 10:05 p.m. The White House sent a clear signal this evening that it would not sanction a delay in certifying the vote or quickly seating Mr. Brown in the Senate. To make the point, the president’s spokesman referred to him in a statement as “Senator Brown.” (He is, of course, already a state senator. But soon will be a United States senator.)

“The president congratulated Senator Brown on his victory and a well-run campaign,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary. “The president told Senator Brown that he looks forward to working with him on the urgent economic challenges facing Massachusetts families and struggling families across our nation.”

3 Reasons Why Mr. Brown Won | 10:03 p.m.

1. He ran a better campaign – period. Putting policies aside, his strategy took a page from the Obama playbook. He tapped into the discontent in an electorate hungry for change. He won over independent voters. He captured his base. (Initially, some Republicans said he wasn’t a pure conservative, but those voices died down after his candidacy took off.)

2. He was likeble. His guy-next-door persona – in television ads and on bus tours across the state – appealed to voters.

3. The discord that is very much alive inside the Republican Party was not visible in this race. Republicans from outside Massachusetts largely stayed away – unlike last year’s race in New York’s 23rd Congressional district – so Mr. Brown could surround himself by sports stars and John Ratzenberger, who played the affable mailman, Cliff Clavin, on “Cheers.”

3 Reasons for Ms. Coakley’s Loss | 10:02 p.m.

1. Her candidacy was uneven and she came across in television ads and public appearances as a less likeable person. She had no emotional connection with voters, while her opponent developed a movement-like following.

2. Her strategists failed to define Mr. Brown. She won the Democratic primary on Dec. 9 and soon began running what appeared to be a Rose Garden-like strategy. Yes, she took a vacation over the Christmas holidays, but she also didn’t start running TV ads until after Mr. Brown had already introduced himself to voters.

3. Democrats in Washington were not properly focused on the race. An air of overconfidence – it was, after all, Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s seat – caught Democrats off guard until it was far too late. There was a failure to recognize the anger percolating in the electorate.

Republican Upset Aftermath| 9:27 p.m. The defeat for Ms. Coakley, which was expected in recent days, delivered a terrifying jolt to Democrats across the country. The victory by Mr. Brown means that Republicans will have 41 votes in the Senate and will suddenly have a far louder voice on Capitol Hill.

The loss for Democrats marks the third-straight defeat in a major race in which Mr. Obama has campaigned on behalf of the party’s candidate. The White House had dismissed losses in the New Jersey and Virginia governors’ races last year as isolated incidents, but the lead pollster for Ms. Coakley warned that Democrats must recalibrate.

“We’ve got Virginia, we’ve got New Jersey and we’ve got Massachusetts,” Celinda Lake, the pollster for Ms. Coakley said in an interview. “We, as a party, have to figure out what we’re going to do about that before this wave hits the 2010 elections.”

Coakley Concedes, Brown Wins | 9:13 p.m. Martha Coakley has conceded the Senate race to Scott Brown in a stunning victory in Massachusetts that will erode the Democratic supermajority in the Senate and upend the second year of President Obama’s administration.

Early Return Thrills | 8:57 p.m. From Katie Zezima, the Brown camp rejoices:

State Representative Karyn Polito just announced, that with 49 percent of the vote in, it was 52 for Mr. Brown and 47 for Ms. Coakley. At Brown headquarters, the crowd exploded and chanted: “Go Scott Go.”

A Brown supporter, Joanne Reilly, 49, a financial planner from Wakefield, and a registered Republican, enthused: “I’m elated for the state of Massachusetts. I’m elated as a Massachusetts Republican. My vote actually counts. I’m elated for our country because it will help put us on the right track.”

Mapping the Returns | 8:47 p.m. You can watch the returns come in, click by click, right here on our interactive map.

The Mitt Surfaces! | 8:10 p.m. From Katie Zezima at the Park Plaza Hotel where the Brown campaign is stationed:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is here, for the first time during Mr. Brown’s run, receiving a huge cheer when he stepped onto the press riser. The room is packed with supporters. And they’re giving away the CD of Mr. Brown’s daughter, Ayla, who was an “American Idol” contestant. (She placed sixth, by the way, and has been featured in her father’s campaign.)

Update: Brown s-Supporters listened to the Flutie brothers band, with Doug on drums, playing songs including “Sweet Home Alabama” as they ate tortellini, cheese and dumplings.

Polls Close | 8:00 p.m. The polls are now closed – after 13 hours of voting here – and optimism abounded among Republicans as a sense of gloom hung over Democrats from here to Washington. If their mood matches the real returns, Scott Brown expects to deliver a victory speech before the 11 p.m. news.

But a word of caution: We’re not calling the race and don’t expect others to until a fair sample of the vote totals come in. That, however, did not stop aides to Mr. Brown from speaking with bold confidence.

“For a Republican to win in Massachusetts you need to run a near perfect campaign, you have to hope your opponent makes a few mistakes, and you need the issues on your side,” Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for Mr. Brown, told reporters tonight at the Park Plaza Hotel. “And we had all three working in Scott Brown’s favor.”

Democrats were studying turnout models and disappointed by what appeared to be lower-than-expected turnout in minority precincts, which typically trend Democratic.

The enthusiasm gap – obvious during the final weeks of the campaign – was apparent here tonight as well. Crowds began to gather at the Park Plaza Hotel, where Mr. Brown had established his home base tonight, while a silence hung in the air at the Sheraton Boston Hotel, where Ms. Coakley is headquartered.

Stay tuned for updates as the real vote totals begin coming in later this hour.

Voters’ Voices | 7:01 p.m. Throughout the day, our reporters have been talking to voters as they headed to and from the polls, which close at 8 p.m. In fact, an interactive feature captures residents’ sentiments as they explained why they voted the way they did.

In North Andover, Katie Zezima interviewed a mother-daughter team, both of whom have long histories of voting for Democratic candidates but who switched allegiances in this hotly contested race. The views below are telling, in a way, because they perhaps underscore the shifts to State Senator Scott Brown that pollsters and the campaigns have picked up on in recent days among independent voters and some Democrats in a race that a month ago looked like a shoo-in for Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate.

From Ms. Zezima: Marlene Connolly, 73, of North Andover, says she cast her first vote for a Republican today, forced to return to her polling place after waiting 45 minutes initially when the lines were long. She left to pick up her grandson from school, and then waited another 20 minutes before finally getting her opportunity to be heard in the voting booth.

“I voiced my opinion and voted for a Republican, and the roof did not cave in,” Ms. Connolly said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this and if my husband were alive you’d hear a roar, but I think I am now a Republican. I’m just devastated by what Obama’s doing. I don’t think he cares enough about anything other than his own personal agenda or this foolish health care bill.”

It did give her pause to consider putting a Republican in to fill the seat of the late Senator Kennedy, she said. “It bothered me very much that it’s Kennedy’s seat, that did bother me. But the health bill totally upsets me. First of all, do we really know what’s going on with it? It’s always evasive when they’re talking about it.”

Most upsetting to her was the proposed deal made for unions recently on the excise tax. “My daughter and her husband work for companies that are not unionized and they would get slammed,” she explained.

But she also said that while it was fair for the president to place blame on the administration of former President George W. Bush for the economic situation, President Obama’s programs would also increase the nation’s debt. “My little grandson and his children will be paying for all these things, these giveaways. I’m a JFK person, and Jack would give you a hand up, not a handout. And that’s the difference. The Democratic party is not Jack Kennedy’s party and, ergo, I voted for Senator Brown. I think he’ll help change our tide. Of course he’s only one person, but he scared the Dickens out of the Democrats,” Ms. Connolly said.

See the related article by Liz Robbins on the turnout,with more voters talking about the decisions they made today.

Political Geography | 5:16 p.m. Michael Cooper relays:

Here, in time for watching the Senate returns come in, is a brief primer on the political geography of Massachusetts, courtesy of David Paleologos, the director of the Political Research Center at Suffolk University in Boston.

Martha Coakley, the Democrat running for the seat long held by Edward M. Kennedy, will need a big turnout, and wide margins, in the state’s urban areas, Mr. Paleologos said: greater Boston, Springfield, Fall River, New Bedford and Lawrence.

Scott Brown, the Republican running for the seat, needs to do well in the vote-rich crescent of suburbs surrounding Boston – the swath between Interstate 495 and Route 128 – whose many independent voters have proven key in electing Republicans governor of Massachusetts for 16 years until 2006.

In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by three to one, but a majority of voters are independents, the highest concentrations of Democrats are still in urban areas, Mr. Paleologos said. Suffolk County, which includes Boston, is the only county in the state where a majority of voters are registered Democrats. So she must win by wide
margins in urban areas, and he must win by wide margins in the suburbs.

“Her base is urban,’’ Mr. Paleologos said. “His strength is going to be in a lot of the suburban, or rural communities.’’

Mr. Paleologos said that Mr. Brown’s strength was likely to come in places like North Andover, Middleton, Wellesley and his home base of Wrentham. He added that he would expect Ms. Coakley to do well around her home in Medford, in parts of Middlesex County, where she served as district attorney, and in North Adams, where she is from.

Then there are the bellwethers: places like Fitchburg, Gardner and Peabody that he said have closely tracked the statewide results in past similar elections.

“We’ll be looking closely at those,’’ he said.

A Republican comeback? | 3:46 p.m. Much of the analysis about the race quickly gets back to finger-pointing among three Democratic establishments: The Coakley campaign, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the White House political apparatus.

We’re not predicting the outcome. Without exit polls in this race, we are patient enough to wait for the ballots to be counted tonight. (Several strategists here believe the results could be known by 9:30 p.m.)

But before then, let’s ask a hypothetical question: If Ms. Coakley loses tonight, what is the morning headline? Democrats Lose Seat or Republicans Seize Victory ?

The point here is this: Republicans in Washington have deliberately been quiet about their role in Mr. Brown’s campaign, fearful that the campaign would devolve into a sideshow among the various factions of the Republican Party. (Who can forget the race in New York’s 23rd Congressional district late last year?)

It was a sign of discipline that hasn’t been seen in Republican quarters for awhile. It makes us wonder whether the Republican campaign committees in the House and Senate – outmatched in recent years by Democrats – have returned to the pole position.

Obama ‘Not Pleased’ | 2:58 p.m. Sheryl Gay Stolberg, from the White House briefing room:

With Democrats in full finger-pointing mode, the White House tried valiantly to stay out of the who-is-to-blame and what-will-happen-next debate over the tight race for the Senate in Massachusetts.

But Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, did say President Obama was not happy about the situation in which the Democrat, Martha Coakley finds herself.

“He was both surprised and frustrated,” Mr. Gibbs said. “Angry?” one reporter asked. “Not pleased,” Mr. Gibbs replied.

Later, another reporter pressed for elaboration. Who is displeasing the president? Mr. Gibbs wouldn’t say.

Would the White House change the State of the Union address next week if Mr. Brown, the Republican, prevailed in the election? “I don’t think that’s true. No,” Mr Gibbs said. Whatever the outcome on Tuesday, the president will still talk about jobs, about fiscal responsibility, about Iraq and Afghanistan and terrorism, he said.

Given that the speechwriters were working on the address to Congress “right now,” Mr. Gibbs said that he didn’t expect them to rip it all up tomorrow. But if Mr. Brown wins, he was asked, will the president’s body language for the State of the Union shift from boldness to contrition?

“I think the president understands that regardless of what happens in Massachusetts, we face a set of circumstances that have to be dealt with,” Mr. Gibbs said, whether there are 59 seats or 60 in the Senate that are counted on the president’s side. “We still have to work hard to get our economy back,” he said. “I don’t believe there’s an entirely new agenda behind some door based on the result of tonight.”

And with House and Senate leaders talking about a Plan B for health care — having the House simply pass the Senate bill and send it quickly to Mr. Obama for his signature — Mr. Gibbs would not say whether Mr. Obama favors such a plan.

“These are all going to be great questions tomorrow,” he said. Would he promise to answer them tomorrow? “I promise I’ll be here tomorrow,” he said.

Brown Takes Out Trash | 2:10 p.m. Michael Cooper tells us that State Senator Brown took some time out on Election Day to run a few errands. By midday he had taken out the trash, been to the post office and gone to the bank, an aide said.

But he did campaign a bit, too. He called into several radio programs, visited phone banks without reporters to thank volunteers and took part in what the aide called his usual Election Day ritual: phoning hundreds of friends and neighbors to personally ask for their vote.

Obama Appeal | 1:40 p.m. As Election Day moves beyond the midpoint, there seems to be little optimism – or excitement – in the voices of Democrats here. Early field reports for Democrats suggest turnout is falling below expectations in several key areas, including precincts dominated by black voters, the party’s traditionally reliable sector of the electorate.

So the president is weighing in through a last-ditch appeal to supporters across the country, asking them to make telephone calls to Massachusetts voters. For days now, members of Organizing for America have been logging hundreds of thousands of calls. It remains an open question if the long-distance persuasion has had any effect.

“The polls are still open, the choice has not been made, and you still have a crucial role to play by calling voters in Massachusetts,” Mr. Obama said in his e-mail appeal. “In a low-turnout special election like this one, every single voter counts.”

The flood of calls – from candidates and outside interest groups – is contributing to a sense of overload, according to several voter interviews. And here’s another potential worry, which was just passed along by a Democrat.

What if the robust calling effort is turning out voters for Mr. Brown, instead?

Party Labels | 1:03 p.m. Dalia Sussman, one of our polling editors, offers us this glimpse of the electorate: As voters choose who should fill the seat long held by the late Edward M. Kennedy, an analysis by Gallup points out, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, that the state’s residents are no more likely than all Americans to identify themselves as Democrats.

Gallup combined 350,000 interviews that it conducted across the country in 2009 (including 8,580 in Massachusetts), and found that 35 percent of Massachusetts residents call themselves Democrats, matching the national average.

Compared with all Americans, however, Bay State adults were more apt to label themselves independents and far less likely to call themselves Republicans. About half (49 percent) identified as independents, compared with 35 percent nationally. And just 13 percent said Republican — that’s 14 percentage points below the national average for last year.

At the same time, when independents were asked which party they leaned toward, most said the Democratic Party. That helps explain the edge the party usually has in the state as well as why Mr. Obama’s approval rating in Massachusetts last year was about 10 percentage points higher than Gallup’s national average.

Nevertheless, Gallup’s analysis notes: “This political environment is not necessarily rigidly Democrat, but instead one built on an underlying structure with a substantial independent component.”

Indeed, despite such low Republican identification, Gallup points out that four of the state’s last five governors have been Republican.

It’s Decision Day | 12:15 p.m. BOSTON – One of the biggest questions surrounding Tuesday’s Senate election in Massachusetts has been this: What will the turnout be?

So far, several early indications suggest that voters are responding to the race with considerable interest. It’s hardly a surprise, considering that the race here between Attorney General Martha Coakley and State Senator Scott Brown has taken on the frenzy of a presidential campaign.

A spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office said that by 9 a.m., two hours after the voting began, more than twice as many people had cast ballots than during the same time period in the December primary. That, of course, was long before the race became nationalized.

We’re following the developments here throughout the day from our team on the ground in Boston and across the state.

Michael Cooper reports from Boston: Some political candidates assume that by Election Day, they have done all they can, so they rest up and wait for returns to come in. (Senator John McCain, for example, was known to go to the movies on Election Days past.) But Ms. Coakley has packed her last day full of campaign stops.

She developed a reputation early on in the campaign for keeping a light schedule and shying away from the kind of retail politics that many New Englanders expect. But on Tuesday, she is hitting key urban bases where she needs a high turnout from Democrats. She met morning commuters in Boston, with plans to stop at diners in New Bedford and Fall River, followed by greeting voters in Springfield, Worcester and Boston.

Her fate, of course, depends largely on whether she can draw enough Democrats to the polls to counter the success that her opponent, Mr. Brown, seems to be enjoying from independent voters in the suburbs.

In some places, voting seemed brisk to Republicans and Democrats alike. Earl Berner, 63, chairman of the Leicester Republican Committee, said at midmorning that turnout “is incredible. It is like rush hour now and it’s been going on all morning.”

Dispatches from several polling places Tuesday morning — while not a scientific sample by any means — showed that for some voters, the health care debate in Washington held some resonance. Mr. Brown had vowed on the campaign trail to become the 41st vote against the legislation, which if he won would leave the Senate Democrats without their supermajority.

From Marlborough, Anne Lenault, 56, who identified herself as an independent, said she backed Ms. Coakley to help continue the agenda that the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy held dear.

“I didn’t feel that someone like Scott Brown could replace Ted Kennedy’s ideas and views,” Ms. Lenault said. “Coakley had more of the views I was looking for to replace Ted.”

But on the Republican side, Kevin Trenholme, 44, an engineer, was among those who cast a vote reflecting the antigovernment sentiment that Mr. Brown seemed to have tapped into. “I voted for Brown to hopefully control the craziness in Washington,” said Mr. Trenholme. “Health care is being forced down our throats.”

A similar view was voiced in Leicester by Robert Rivard, 67, a retired mechanical engineer and independent, who said his vote was as much for Mr. Brown as it was “also a statement about what I don’t want.”

“I don’t like business as usual, which is what we have now, and I also recognize the national consequences with this election. I don’t like that the health care bill is being ramrodded through,” Mr. Rivard added.

Other voters interviewed in Leicester seemed to hope that some type of health care overhaul could be achieved. Helen Shuster, 73, a retired library director and Democrat who helped make calls on Ms. Coakley’s behalf, said getting the bill passed was a pressing issue. “It is critically important for the country, and while it is not perfect, we need to do something.”

Danielle Ossher contributed to this post.Update | 10:30 p.m.