Massachusetts voters will send Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate, an upset hardly fathomed just weeks ago that conservatives across the country are hailing as a rejection of the national Democratic platform.
The Boston Globe reports that Democratic candidate Martha Coakley conceded to Brown Tuesday night.
With 75 percent of the vote in, Fox News has Brown drawing 56 percent of the vote to Coakley’s 46 percent.
Brown edged Coakley, the state’s attorney general, to take the Senate seat long served by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Massachusetts has not had a Republican senator since Sen. Edward Brooke in the 1970s.
Brown’s election takes away the Democrats’ 60-vote filibuster proof majority in the Senate, which threatens President Barack Obama’s health-care bill.
After Kennedy’s death last summer, Sen. Paul Kirk was appointed to fill the seat.