Brown Beats Coakley

I have it on reliable authority that Scott Brown will beat Martha Coakley by a comfortable margin when the counting’s done tonight.

I intentionally echoed an infamous newspaper headline (“Dewey Defeats Truman”) in my post title because, as my source tells me, if Coakley wins, “then polling as we know it is dead.”

FILED UNDER: Public Opinion Polls, US Politics, , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. yetanotherjohn says:

    Imagine if a democrat had won a special state wide election in Texas suring W.’s time in office. Would the gop have stepped back and wondered how they could have gotten so out of touch?
    Now imagine the gop winning a special statewide election in mass. Will they step back and wonder how they could be so out of touch or double down on their liberal agenda?
    If the election isn’t close enough for the dems to steal and Brown wins, then I bet the dems won’t be smart enough to question why, but will go whole hog on increasing gov’t. control no matter how unpopular it is.

  2. I believe the correct headline would be “Dewey Defeats Truman” but for an alliteration you have a winner in Brown Beats Coakley

  3. markm says:

    I have it on reliable authority

    Dr. James, how would this be different than all the other polling?. Or is this base on initial counts?

  4. PD Shaw says:

    I had read somewhere that there is no exit-polling on this one, so I do wonder what the source of the certainy could be.

  5. markm says:

    I had read somewhere that there is no exit-polling on this one

    This is true…and it SUCKS.

  6. markm says:

    Ta-ta-taday James…a little more details on the quick please.

    This is killin’ me.

  7. J.W. Hamner says:

    They got New Hampshire wrong in the Dem Primary, based on similar fast trends, and it didn’t destroy polling as we know it.

    It also seems to me that everyone admits that likely voters and turnout were difficult/impossible to model here. As a MA resident I can tell you that I haven’t answered my land line in two weeks… I doubt I’m alone in that.

  8. PD Shaw says:

    This is true [ no exit polling ] …and it SUCKS.

    But now I’m free to say that the election was stolen, or won, by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Everybody can do it. Everybody wins!

  9. There was no exit polling because no one saw a need for it until it was to late to arrange.

    There is no Republican state analogy that is close to the shock of the Democrats losing the seat held by a Kennedy in Massachusetts for over 50 years.

  10. PD Shaw says:

    Better than the Symbionese Liberation Army, I would say that James Joyner threw the election with this blog post, before the polls had even closed!!!

  11. Did anyone else feel the earth move at 9:01 PM EST tonight?

  12. G.A.Phillips says:

    Did anyone else feel the earth move at 9:01 PM EST tonight?

    Like a gigantic teabag was dropped from the sky into slobberingly big *** ******* mouth?

    Ya I felt it, knocked the pigeon poop off my bridge girders!

  13. Triumph says:

    I am so psyched about this!

    With Brown in, the Dems are DONE–a defeated, minority party.

    Hopefully we can get Obama out of there ASAP, with Brown leading the charge for impeachment.

    Although Hussein could save us all a bunch of trouble by just resigning and heading back to Kenya with his buddy Adewale Ogunleye, ASAP.

    The criminality and arrogance of the Dummocrats can’t withstand this decisive defeat.

    It is finally great to say that AMERICA IS BACK!!!

  14. mpw280 says:

    Looks prophetic now, doesn’t it? Intrade sure looked like a leading indicator in this battle. Congratulations to Massachusetts newest Senator for a well run campaign. mpw

  15. Have a nice G.A. says:

    who let the troll out?

  16. yetanotherjohn says:

    AP joins Joyner in calling election for Brown. It is unbelievable. Now we will see how the dems react to the political equivalent of a 2 x 4 up side the head. I suspect it won’t knock any sense into them.

  17. Dave Schuler says:

    Your source was right, James. The Boston Globe is reporting that Coakley has conceded.

  18. Matt says:

    Coakley was a terrible candidate and the democrats deluded themselves into believing she had a chance.. Like James said earlier Brown is on the liberal side of the conservative spectrum so I’m not surprised at all by this..

  19. Brett says:

    We’ll see how things look in 2012. Unless Brown decides to leap-frog off this to run in the 2012 presidential election, my guess is that he’ll probably be run out of office in 2012 if he goes full tea-bagger.

    He got lucky, running against Martha “Chokely” and in a special election where very few people give a shit.

  20. Yeah, the fact that so many Democrats voted for him doesn’t mean a thing when over 50% showed up for a special election on a cold day in blue-blue-blue Massachusetts.

    Defining democracy down.

  21. anjin-san says:

    And the Democrats begin to give back the gains they made with Howard Dean at the helm…

  22. Chris Moore says:

    Scott Brown is just the beginning. This election was not a referendum on any political party. This was a referendum on career politicians voting in secret, using our money to buy their re-elections, and insulting our traditions of self-government and natural freedoms. The people of this nation realize the Constitution was written for a reason. Over the last several generations that Constitution has been slowly dismantled and ignored. It will be our generation that returns our nation to the principles under which she was founded.

  23. Brett says:

    Yeah, the fact that so many Democrats voted for him doesn’t mean a thing when over 50% showed up for a special election on a cold day in blue-blue-blue Massachusetts.

    While I don’t necessarily agree about the former, I was wrong on the latter – turnout was pretty high. My bad.

    To be honest, I’m feeling a kind of cynical amusement about this right now. Maybe it’s just a fatalistic reaction from a liberal democrat living in one of the most deeply red states in the US.

  24. sam says:

    @Chris Moore

    Scott Brown is just the beginning. This election was not a referendum on any political party. This was a referendum on career politicians voting in secret, using our money to buy their re-elections, and insulting our traditions of self-government and natural freedoms. The people of this nation realize the Constitution was written for a reason. Over the last several generations that Constitution has been slowly dismantled and ignored. It will be our generation that returns our nation to the principles under which she was founded.

    @JJ

    The public is fickle and interested mostly in results.

    Hope vs. Experience. I’ll go with experience.

  25. Zelsdorf Ragshaft III says:

    Gee, Sam, if experience were important, why is Obama President? He ran on hope turned out to be hype. Face it, Obama has tried to install a radical agenda which even the good people of the Bay State rejected. Brown was smart enough to make this about issues not parties. A Senate seat held by a Democrat, Kennedy, is now held by a Republican. Spin it if you can but the facts on the ground are clear.

  26. sam says:

    Well, I think Daniel Larison has the best take on the election (written before the election):

    The easy analysis of what is happening is to say that “even in deep-blue Massachusetts people are rejecting Obama’s agenda,” but none of this makes any sense. I don’t say this because I have any sympathy for Obama’s domestic agenda, but because I don’t think there is any way to understand this response by voters in a heavily Democratic state except as an expression of pure anti-incumbency sentiment and a desire simply to shake things up. After years of mocking Obama’s signature campaign slogans, Republicans have found that their best path back to power is exploiting the desire to change for change’s sake.

    I.e. “Can you hear me now??!!”

  27. McGehee says:

    What it means is, Obama turned out not to be the change people were hoping for.

  28. Franklin says:

    Well don’t start sucking each other’s d**ks just yet. Coakley was one of the worst candidates of all time. That was a large part of this equation.

  29. sam says:

    What it means is, Obama turned out not to be the change people were hoping for

    .

    I think that’s right, and it would be a mistake for Republicans to think that Brown’s election was some affirmation of the desire to keep the status quo (or, in their case, the status no). Look, the guy’s got two years before he has to stand for reelection, it’ll be interesting to see how he fares in 2012.

  30. John Burgess says:

    But isn’t it puzzling that the smarter-than-conservative Democrats manage to put up bad candidates in MA, and NJ, and VA?

  31. McGehee says:

    the status quo (or, in their case, the status no).

    Nice one. Consider it stolen.