Massachusetts Exit Polls Closed! Now The Wait

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Polls Close In Competitive Massachusetts Senate Race



Polls have closed in the Massachusetts special election, an unexpectedly competitive contest that could have significant implications for President Obama's agenda in Washington.

Republican Scott Brown's late-in-the-game surge in the state has 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 the late Sen. Ted Kennedy in Democratic hands. Democrat Martha Coakley, the state attorney general, was thought to be a shoo-in for the seat until Brown starting gaining rapidly in the polls.

Early returns were not available. But Rasmussen Reports released some data from its election night survey of 1,000 voters. The survey found Coakley had a slight edge, 47-to-41 percent, among those who decided how they would vote in the past few days. Rasmussen reported she had a "big advantage" among those who decided who to vote for more than a month ago.

Voter interest in the race for U.S. Senate seemed high throughout the day. With the state poised to play a pivotal role in shaping the balance of power in Washington, 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.

"This is going to be the most significant special election in modern American history if Scott Brown wins," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. He predicted a Brown win would buoy every other "long-shot" Republican candidate in the country and add fuel to the party's momentum going into the midterms this fall.

More immediately, a Brown win would pose big problems for Obama's agenda items, not the least of which is health care reform. Brown, should he win, would break the Democrats' 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority, sending Democrats into a scramble to pass the health care bill before he arrives.

Though Republicans have occasionally been a political force in state politics, Massachusetts voters have not sent a Republican to represent them in the U.S. Senate since 1972. Every member of the state delegation currently in Washington is a Democrat.

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 have 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.

"Every vote matters, every voice matters," Obama said in the ad. "We need you on Tuesday."

Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., pitched in by having his campaign team make phone calls to get people out to the polls. According to one Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee staff member who stayed behind in Washington, it was all hands on deck in the Bay State.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington also has "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 are also offering phone banking support to Brown.

"I came up to help out because of the excitement, we have so many people turning up at our volunteer phone banks we have to turn them away," said one such Republican operative, "Stuff like this is why I got into politics."

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 has 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."

A Suffolk University survey taken Saturday and Sunday showed Brown with double-digit leads in three communities the poll identified as bellwethers: Gardner, Fitchburg and Peabody. But internal statewide polls for both sides showed a dead heat.

A third candidate, Joseph L. 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.



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