The Year In Upsets
Scott Brown greets supporters after speaking at his victory celebration in Massachusetts's Senate race in January. (Robert Spencer/Getty Images)
Earlier this week, we took a look at the Year In Scandals.
Today, we'll look at the biggest upsets of 2010. And there were plenty to go around this year -- from a Republican winning Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts to Tea Party fueled upheaval in Republican primaries.
The year started out with one of the biggest upsets of the year: Sen. Scott Brown's (R) special election victory in Massachusetts. Brown, a little known state senator, took on Attorney General Martha Coakley (D), who as a statewide officeholder, had a perfect political resume - on paper. By running a well-oiled campaign that capitalized on early unrest with the Democratic agenda to raise millions of dollars, Brown won late Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat in January. And, as we noted recently, Brown is in surprisingly good shape for 2012 when he is up for re-election.
Alaska could be dubbed "upset central" after the 2010 cycle. First, we saw Republican attorney Joe Miller pull off a Tea Party Express fueled stunner against Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Senate Republican primary. More than anything else, Miller's win was another example the Tea Party Express' ability to influence a Republican primary electorate -- something that defined 2010 Republican primaries.
The primary win was the high point of Miller's campaign and it quickly went downhill from there. Murkowski launched a long shot write-in bid, something no senator has successfully pulled off since Strom Thurmond in 1954. Miller stumbled repeatedly, including a highly covered incident where his security detail (yes, evidently he had a security detail) arrested a reporter. That opened the door for Murkowski to pull off the second upset in the Last Frontier, when she beat Miller, despite his unwillingness to bow out of the race.
After Miller's primary win, the Tea Party Express rolled into Delaware and produced another stunner: Christine O'Donnell's win over Rep. Mike Castle in the Republican Senate primary and ending Castle's four long service holding elected office in the state. O'Donnell went on to run a much-mocked general election campaign, virtually handing the Senate seat to Democrat Chris Coons. All was not lost for O'Donnell, however; the Republican, who -- if nothing else -- could spark media coverage on demand, recently signed a book deal.
The upsets weren't limited to Senate races. In the House, perhaps no win was more surprising that Republican Rep.-elect Blake Farenthold's win over Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D) in Texas. Ortiz was barely on the radar screen of vulnerable Democrats and Farenthold, a radio talk show host, provided plenty of fodder for opposition researchers. Most notably
were pictures of Farenthold wearing pajamas with a scantily clad woman on the cover of a little-read magazine.
And not to be forgotten is Illinois Rep.-elect Joe Walsh (R), who beat Rep. Melissa Bean (D) this year. Bean was also far down the list of vulnerable Democrats and Walsh's campaign had plenty of missteps. Most notably, none of his staff seemed to like working for him. Most of his campaign team walked out on him early in the race and his campaign manager sued him for $20,000.
Leave A Comment