U.S. Senate (2010–2013)
2010 election On September 12, 2009, Brown announced his run for the U.S. Senate seat that became vacant with the death of
Ted Kennedy, saying the state "needs an independent thinker".
Washington Post columnist
Kathleen Parker said that Brown's political positions did not fall neatly into party lines, and called Brown "mainstream in a nation that defines itself as mostly conservative". Boris Shor, political scientist at the
Harris School of Public Policy, described Brown as a liberal Republican by national standards, but well-suited for his Massachusetts constituency. Shor explained the support Brown was receiving from the conservative national Republican Party as due to its "decentralized decision" to support the candidate most likely to win. Brown won a landslide victory in the Republican primary on December 8, 2009, defeating late entrant and
perennial candidate Jack E. Robinson by a margin of 89 percent to 11 percent. Brown's opponents in the general election were Democratic nominee, Attorney General
Martha Coakley, and
independent Joseph L. Kennedy (no relation to the
Kennedy family). At the outset, he faced overwhelming odds because he was relatively unknown compared to Coakley, he was running as a Republican in a very Democratic state, and much of his campaigning had to be done during the Christmas and New Year's season when citizens do not generally pay much attention to politics. No Republican had been elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts since
Edward Brooke in 1972. He polled far behind Coakley for several months, but closed the gap in the early weeks of January. One week before the January special election, a controversy arose over a Coakley approved television ad. The ad referenced the
conscientious objector amendment Brown had sponsored for inclusion in a 2005 proposed state measure on patients' rights. This amendment would have allowed individual healthcare workers and hospitals to refuse to provide emergency contraceptive care (the
morning-after pill) to rape victims if they objected due to a
religious belief. After the amendment failed, Brown did vote for the main bill which, along with other patient rights, requires healthcare workers and hospitals to provide such care. Coakley's ad featured a male voice that said, "Brown even favors letting hospitals deny emergency contraception to rape victims," over the ad's graphic which had the words, "Deny rape victims care". According to Politifact, while Brown was a Massachusetts legislator, he voted about 90 percent with the state Republican leadership; however, Republican leadership in the Massachusetts legislature is generally considered far more moderate than the national Republican Party. A week before the general election, Brown raised $1.3 million from over 16,000 donors in a 24-hour
moneybomb. His campaign office stated it raised $5 million over the period from January 11–15. Charlie Cook of the
Cook Political Report stated on January 17 that he would put his "finger on the scale" for Brown as the favorite. The Rothenberg Political Report released a statement that "the combination of public and private survey research and anecdotal information now strongly suggests that Republican Scott Brown will defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in tomorrow's race."
Suffolk University's polling of three
bellwether counties on January 18 had Brown leading Coakley by double-digit margins. Brown won the January 19 election, performing well in traditional Republican strongholds and holding rival Coakley's margins down in many Democratic precincts. On election night, after Coakley conceded, Brown gave a victory speech that stated, "It all started with me, my truck, and a few dedicated volunteers. It ended with Air Force One making an emergency run to Logan. I didn't mind when President Obama came here and criticized me – that happens in campaigns. But when he criticized my truck, that's where I draw the line." Brown's upset win stunned the national Democratic party, and foreshadowed nationwide success for Republicans in
2010.
2012 election October 2011 polling showed Brown's approvals had fallen and he faced a competitive re-election if matched against Democrat Elizabeth Warren. However, his numbers in early March 2012 showed he led Warren by 8 points in the polls. In March 2012, Brown's lead had narrowed to 2.3%, within the margin of error. By September 2012, several polls showed Warren with a lead over Brown (though one source still gave Brown an edge).
2014 election After much anticipation by the media, Brown announced that he would run for U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire. Born at
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, to parents who lived near downtown Portsmouth, following his parents' divorce. He has also been a taxpayer and owned a home in Rye, New Hampshire for more than two decades. In December 2013, he sold his primary home in Massachusetts and expressed to the Rye town clerk "his intention to establish residency and register to vote". . Polling done by various agencies in April and May 2014 showed incumbent Senator Jeanne Shaheen leading Brown by 3 to 5 points. A poll conducted in May by the Republican Governors Association showed Brown leading Jeanne Shaheen by 5 points. In late August, a
WMUR/
UNH poll showed Shaheen leading Brown by two points, 46 to 44. Polls were mixed in the final three weeks of the election, with most showing Shaheen ahead by 1–8 percentage points, and weekly polls by
NH1 News,
New England College, and Vox Populi showing Brown leading by 1–4 points. There were five total debates during the election, three of which were televised. The televised U.S. Senate Debates were hosted by
WMUR-TV,
NECN, and
NH1 News. The WMUR Debate was moderated by
George Stephanopoulos of
ABC and Josh McElveen of
WMUR-TV and was held at
Saint Anselm College in
Goffstown. The NH1 News Debate was moderated by
Wolf Blitzer of
CNN and Paul Steinhauser of
NH1 and was held at the NH1 Media Center in
Concord. The NECN Debate was moderated by
Chuck Todd of
NBC and was held at the
Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord. Brown narrowly lost to the incumbent Shaheen by a vote of 251,184 (51%) to 235,347 (48%).
Tenure swears in Brown, as Senators
Paul G. Kirk and
John Kerry look on. Brown was sworn into office on February 4, 2010, by Vice President
Joe Biden, in his capacity as
President of the Senate, on the floor of the Senate. As a
Class I Senator, his term lasted until January 3, 2013. Brown was among the speakers at the
Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., introducing former Massachusetts
governor Mitt Romney. Brown refused to rule out a vote for a Democratic jobs bill proposal, while praising both
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of
Nevada and then-
senior Senator
John Kerry of Massachusetts for indicating their willingness to work with him across party lines. Brown was one of five Republican senators to vote for
cloture on the
jobs bill. The motion passed in the Senate 62–30 on February 22, 2010. In an
up or down vote on the bill itself on February 24, 2010, Brown voted for final passage, helping to pass the bill 70–28. Brown met with President Obama in the Oval Office on June 16, 2010. According to
The Washington Post, Brown voted with the majority of Republicans 80% of the time. In the same poll, "56% of Massachusetts voters believed he had kept his promise to be an independent voice in the U.S. Senate." Brown's views on the 2011 budget cuts and his departures from Republican consensus placed him at odds with some of his fellow Republicans and prominent Tea Party conservatives, including
Glenn Beck. He said he opposed these measures because he believed that they would have a negative impact on low income families and children. In late June 2010, Brown was ranked as "the most popular officeholder in Massachusetts" according to a poll conducted by
The Boston Globe. 55% of those polled had favorable opinions of Brown nearly five months after his January 19, 2010, special election victory to finish the term of the late Senator Edward Kennedy. 50% of respondents generally approved of how Brown had handled his new position. On March 30, 2011, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee released a poll showing that Brown remained the "most popular politician in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, with an approval rating of 73 percent." Brown's "'re-elect' score was comfortably above 50 percent, which is unusual for a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic state."
Committee assignments General
Craig R. McKinley at the Senate
National Guard Caucus in 2011. Brown's committee assignments were as follows. •
Committee on Armed Services •
Subcommittee on Airland (Ranking Member) •
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities •
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces •
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs •
Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery •
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security (Ranking Member) •
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia •
Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship •
Committee on Veterans' Affairs ;Caucus memberships •
Senate Oceans Caucus ==Private sector (2013–2017)==