Republican candidate Scott Brown took the Massachusetts Senate seat with 52 percent of the vote over Democratic candidate Attorney General Martha Coakley in a special election Tuesday.
Coakley grabbed 47 percent of the vote, while independent candidate Joseph Kennedy garnered 1 percent.
Brown, a 50-year-old lawyer and former model, will replace Senator Ted Kennedy, whose recent death ended a 46-year Senate career. Brown’s victory stands as the first Republican win of an open Senate seat election in Massachusetts since 1966.
With his victory, Brown also takes the 60th vote the Democrats need to pass their healthcare legislation as a majority.
“It’s going to make it much more difficult for the Democrats, since they no longer have 60 votes and they have to recalibrate,” said Joel Aberbach, political science professor and director of The Center for American Politics & Public Policy.
Aberbach paralleled the current situation to that faced by the 1993 Clinton administration, which was not able to pass its healthcare package.
“The big question is what they should do, not whether to do something,” he added.