Occasionally, a trend can happen that looks shocking in hindsight. The right candidate can make almost any state competitive, and a series of strong candidates can help a party hold on long after they should have died out. In the early 2010s, Massachusetts was one of these states.
Before 2010, Republicans hadn’t managed to pull even 31% in a Senate race since 1994. And since, they have failed to win even 40% in a Senate race. But for three cycles, Republicans ran credible Senate campaigns in Massachusetts.
2010 Massachusetts Senate Special Election
The 2010 Massachusetts Senate Special Election was a perfect storm. President Barack Obama’s signature health care plan was proving controversial, Democrats nominated perhaps the worst Senate candidate imaginable in Martha Coakley, and Republicans had a perfect nominee in Scott Brown, a moderate State Senator. All three of these factors combined into what amounted to one of the most shocking Senate results of the 2010s.
To win, Brown needed to thread an impossible needle: running against a President who had won the state with 62% of the vote just two years earlier, leveraging a growing sentiment towards fiscal conservatism, and running against unpopular socially conservative stances, especially regarding abortion. By all accounts, he was able to do all three successfully. On the Democratic side, Coakley proved to be a horrific nominee. Her campaign was incompetent, plagued by gaffes – most notably, complaining about the prospect of “standing outside Fenway Park in the cold shaking hands” and referring to Boston Red Sox legend Curt Schilling as a “Yankees fan”. By January, a young Nate Silver forecasted Brown would win.
Brown ended up winning by 4.7%, a fairly comfortable margin. His winning coalition combined strong support across suburban and rural communities, while Coakley relied on support from the major cities and liberal, rural communities in the west. It marked the first – and as of the time of writing, last – time Republicans had won a Senate race in the state since 1972. Coakley would go on to lose a bid for Governor in 2014.
2012 Massachusetts Senate Election
The 2012 Massachusetts Senate election was generally considered to be the marquee Senate race of the cycle. Brown had emerged as one of the Senate’s most moderate Republicans; the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime score of 53%, while the liberal Americans for Democratic Action graded him at a lifetime score of 50%. Brown had highly favorable approval ratings from Massachusetts voters. In a March 2011 poll, Brown had a 73% approval rating, and over 50% of voters said they’d vote to re-elect him.
To unseat Brown, Democrats nominated academic Elizabeth Warren, the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Both candidates ran aggressive campaigns, with Brown depicting Warren as an aloof academic, and Warren tying Brown to unpopular federal Republican policies. Brown also criticized Warren’s claims of Native American ancestry, but faced a major drag at the top of ticket due to Mitt Romney’s conservative campaign and the “War on Women” narrative that dominated much of the Presidential election.
Warren would end up winning by a wider-than-expected margin of 7.5 percentage points. This lead was due largely to a gender gap. Women favored Warren by an 18-point margin, while men voted for Brown by a 6-point margin. Brown ran nearly 16 points ahead ahead of the Romney-Ryan ticket, but it’s undeniable that Romney’s poor standing in the state also played a key role in Brown’s defeat.
2013 Massachusetts Senate Special Election
2013’s special Senate election marked the last competitive Senate election in Massachusetts. After longtime incumbent Senator John Kerry stepped down to become Secretary of State, this Class 2 Senate seat was left open. Republicans coalesced around Gabriel Gomez, a political newcomer and former Navy SEAL. On the Democratic side, two Congressmen – 5th district Rep. Ed Markey and 8th district Rep. Stephen Lynch – duked it out. Markey was the more liberal of the two, while Lynch was a relative moderate. Markey would end up winning the primary by a decisive 15-point margin. Lynch carried the south Boston suburbs and white working-class areas, while Markey dominated in the rest of the state.
The 2013 Massachusetts Senate special election was perceived as a potentially competitive race. Gomez positioned himself as a moderate, supporting gay marriage, gun control, and immigration reform. However, Gomez was outraised by more than 2:1 margins, and Markey led all public polls. Markey would ultimately win by just over 10 percentage points.
However, the map reveals a few interesting details. While Gomez lost by a wider margin than Brown, he was able to flip two working-class counties – Hamden and Bristol – that Brown had lost. These gains were countered by Markey’s stronger support in the Boston suburbs; he flipped Middlesex and Norfolk, two counties Brown had won in both 2010 and 2012. In a way, this trend – swapping suburban voters for working-class whites – previewed the emerging Republican base in the state.