GOP's Brown wins Mass. Senate race

BOSTON -- In an upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in a U.S. Senate election Tuesday that left President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in doubt.

Brown will become the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to block the president's health care legislation and the rest of Obama's agenda. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to thwart Republican filibusters.

With 97 percent of precincts counted, Brown led Coakley, 52 percent to 47 percent. Turnout was relatively heavy for a special election despite a mix of snow and rain showers across the state virtually all day.

For weeks considered a long shot for the seat that the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy held for nearly half a century, Brown seized on voter discontent to overtake Coakley in the final stretch of the campaign. Surveys showed his candidacy energized Republicans, including backers of the grassroots "tea party" movement, while attracting disappointed Democrats and independents uneasy with where they felt the nation was heading.

Democratic fingerpointing began more than a week ago as polls started showing a tight race, with the White House accusing Coakley of a poor campaign and the Coakley camp laying some of the blame on the administration. Obama flew to Boston for last-ditch personal campaigning Sunday.

Though he wasn't on the ballot, the president was on many voters' minds.

"I voted for Obama because I wanted change. ... I thought he'd bring it to us, but I just don't like the direction that he's heading," said John Triolo, 38, a registered independent who voted in Fitchburg.

He said his frustrations, including what he considered the too-quick pace of health care legislation, led him to vote for Brown.

But Robert Hickman, 55, of New Bedford, said he backed Coakley "to stay on the same page with the president."

Voters considered national issues including health care and the federal budget deficits.

"We don't want health care just for the rich and the middle class. We need it for everyone," said Democrat Neicei Degen, 82, who voted for Coakley in hopes of saving Obama's plan that would extend coverage to millions of uninsured.

Fears about spending drove Karla Bunch, 49, to vote for Brown. "It's time for the country, for the taxpayers, to take back their money," she said.

For others, feelings about the candidates themselves shaped their votes.

Recalling that Brown once posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine, Kaitlin Addams, 50, said she reluctantly voted for Coakley "to make sure the pinup boy doesn't get into office. I don't like his stand on issues. He's an extreme conservative."

Conversely, Elizabeth Reddin, 65, voted for Brown because she said she was turned off by the Democrat's negative advertisements, saying: "The Coakley stuff was disgusting."

As polls opened, Brown drove up to his polling place in Wrentham in the green pickup truck that came to symbolize his upstart, workmanlike campaign that in the past week pulled him into a surprise dead heat in polls.

"It would make everybody the 41st senator, and it would bring fairness and discussion back to the equation," the state senator said of a victory.