• In costliest-ever Senate race, Warren beats Brown for Massachusetts seat

    Democrat Elizabeth Warren wins the Senate seat in Massachusetts, defeating GOP incumbent Scott Brown.

    By Jeff Black, Staff Writer, NBC News

    In perhaps the most-watched Senate race in the 2012 election, Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren is the projected winner of the Massachusetts seat once held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, NBC News reported.

    Warren faced Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who swept to an upset victory in a January 2010 special election. Still, Brown was the underdog in the race against a Democrat known for her role in establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

    Brown — who referred to his opponent as "Professor Warren" at nearly every stop — suggested Warren had exploited her Native-American heritage to get jobs or get into schools. Warren said she heard about her Native-American roots from her mother and never use it to gain an advantage in her career.

    “So much intensity in that race,” said NBC News' David Gregory, who moderated one of the debates between the candidates. “And don’t forget what Scott Brown represented. He was the vote against health care. He was the backlash that really represented and carried Republicans to the House and led the charge in the midterm election. He was also someone who tried as a mass moderate to work with the president and yet it wasn’t enough.”

    The two candidates, The Associated Press reported, agreed to no outside money by super PACs and other independent groups then together spent $68 million on their campaigns, shattering all previous fundraising and spending records in Massachusetts.

    NBC's Andrea Mitchell, Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams take a look at some key races at the state level across the U.S.

    The Federal Election Commission reported Warren had raised $38.5 million in political donations as of mid-October, compared to Brown's $26.7 million. Brown's total doesn't include the $6 million left in his campaign account after the 2010 special election that propelled him into the Senate.

    “Scott Brown would have had to win 20 percent of the Democratic vote to win against Elizabeth Warren,” said NBC News' Andrea Mitchell. “It was a very expensive, very hard fought race.”

    Warren, 63, attempted to paint Brown, 53, as beholden to millionaires, billionaires and "big oil,” though the incumbent suggested he was an independent and moderate.

    "I've kept my promise to be an independent voice. I put people ahead of politics and now I need your help to keep that independent tradition alive in Massachusetts," Brown said in his final ad, which features him embracing voters and driving his pickup truck. Still, he avoided any mention of Brown's party affiliation.

    While Massachusetts is home to Republican challenger Mitt Romney — whose campaign Brown has endorsed  — the only image of a presidential candidate in the 60-second ad is Democrat Barack Obama, according to The Associated Press.

    Scott Brown tells his supporters, "I don't want to see any sad faces out there. We ran a fantastic campaign." Watch his concession speech.

    NBC News has projected the president as the winner in the state by a commanding margin over Republican challenger Mitt Romney. 

    Warren cast herself as a fighter for the middle class.

    “This victory belongs to you. You did this,” Warren said at her election party on Tuesday. “For every family that has been chipped and squeezed and hammered, we’re going to fight for a level playing field and we’re going to put people back to work."

    Both campaigns boasted about their efforts to get out the vote. Warren's camp hoped to knock on a million doors and make 2 million phone calls in the campaign's final days. 

    The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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  • Democrats make gains in Senate majority

    Despite needing to defend 23 seats, Democrats managed to retain control of the Senate, a feat that seemed unlikely when this election year began. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.

    By M. Alex Johnson, NBC News

    Updated at 2:00 p.m. ET, Nov. 7: Democrats added another seat in the Senate on Wednesday, according to NBC News projections, strengthening their control of the Senate. 

    Democrat Heidi Heitkamp was declared the winner of the North Dakota senate race Wednesday, defeating Republican Rep. Rick Berg. See results

    Earlier, Democrat Jon Tester was declared the winner over Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg in Montana, a contest which saw an estimated $40 million spent in a state with fewer than 1 million residents. See results

    Those victories, which gave Democrats control of 53 seats in the Senate -- along with one independent, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who caucuses with them -- kept the party's edge in the upper chamber of Congress.

    Independent Angus King of Maine won an open Senate seat that had been held by Republican Olympia Snowe, NBC News projected. King could vote with the Democrats, though he hasn't yet said which party, if any, he will side with. 

    Maine independent promised to shake up Washington

    In one of the most hotly contested Congressional races, Democrat Elizabeth Warren won the Massachusetts Senate seat held by Republican Sen. Scott Brown, becoming the first woman to be elected to the Senate from that state. The senator-elect speaks with TODAY's Matt Lauer about her victory.

    With the House remaining in Republican hands, the makeup of the government will remain static: President Barack Obama was re-elected, but he will have to contend with a divided Congress for four more years.

    "Things like this are what happens when your No. 1 goal is to defeat the president and not work to get legislation passed," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in a statement. 

    In a statement of his own, Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky challenged Obama to "propose solutions that actually have a chance of passing the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a closely divided Senate."

    "To the extent he wants to move to the political center, which is where the work gets done in a divided government, we'll be there to meet him halfway," McConnell said.

    View complete Senate election results

    The Democrats clung to control on the back of a series victories in states that had been statistical ties in pre-election polls:

    Senators winning re-election

    NBC News projected that the following senators would win re-election:
    John Barrasso, R-Wyo.
    Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio
    Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
    Ben Cardin, D-Md.
    Bob Casey, D-Pa.
    Tom Carper, D-Del.
    Bob Corker, R-Tenn.
    Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
    Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.
    Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
    Tom Manchin, D-W.Va.
    Robert Menendez, D-N.J.
    Bill Nelson, D-Fla.
    Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
    Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.
    Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
    Roger Wicker, R-Miss.

    • Harvard University law professor Elizabeth Warren ousted Republican Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts, NBC News projected. Massachusetts results
    • Republican state legislator Deb Fischer defeated former Sen. Bob Kerrey for the open seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, NBC News projected. Nebraska results
    • Democratic former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine beat former Republican Gov. George Allen, NBC News projected, keeping the seat held by the retiring Sen. Jim Webb in Democratic hands. See results
    • Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly of Indiana defeated Republican state Treasurer Richard Mourdock to claim the open seat held by Republican Dick Lugar, NBC News projected. Mourdock had been favored until he drew national opposition for having said in a debate last month that he believed that pregnancies resulting from rape were a "gift from God" and shouldn't be terminated. See results
    • Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill held on to her seat in Missouri after Republican Rep. Todd Akin made similar comments in a TV interview in August, suggesting that women's bodies could "shut down" a pregnancy that was the result of a "legitimate rape." See results

    Virginia Senator-elect Tim Kaine weighs in on what made the difference for him and the president in his state, how Obama plans to work with the GOP and why it may be a more cooperative relationship in this second term.

    As expected, Rep. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., defeated Republican former Rep. Heather Wilson to win the open seat of retiring Republican Jeff Bingaman, and Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., beat Republican former Gov. Tommy Thompson to become the nation's first openly gay senator, NBC News projected. New Mexico results 

    Thompson, who served as secretary of Health and Human Services in the administration of former President Geoorge W. Bush, announced his retirement from politics in his concession speech. Wisconsin results

    Wisconsin's Baldwin becomes first openly gay senator

    Democrats entered Tuesday with control 53 seats in the current Senate (that number included Sanders and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who also generally voted with them); Republicans held 47.

    Ten senators weren't seeking re-election this cycle — the most since 1996. In addition, Lugar lost to Mourdock in the Indiana Republican primary, meaning at least 11 new faces will join the Senate on Jan. 2.

    Exit polls: Majority of voters see America on wrong track

    Warren's victory was particularly sweet for Democrats, for whom she was a hero as the architect of Obama's U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

    "You took on the powerful Wall Street banks and special interests, and you let them know you want a senator who will be out there fighting for the middle class all of the time," she told cheering supporters in Boston.

    The races in Missouri and Indiana were also closely watched because of the controversies generated by Akin's and Mourdock's comments on abortion.

    McCaskill reveled in her victory, giving supporters a beaming I-told-you-so speech in St. Louis.

    "They all said it's over — it's done, it's too red, it's just too red," she said. "There is no way that Claire McCaskill can survive. Well, you know what happened? You proved them wrong."

    Akin told supporters in Missouri that he had called to congratulate McCaskill, but he sounded a defiant note:

    Todd Akin says that called Claire McCaskill to concede after being defeated in the Missouri Senate race.

    "I also think, in the circumstances that we've all been through, that it is particularly appropriate to thank God, who makes no mistakes and is wiser than we are," Akin said.

    "... Washington, D.C.'s first questions shouldn't be what's politically expedient, but what's right," he said. "Washington doesn't need more money. It needs more courage."

    Donnelly, meanwhile, stressed bipartisanship, telling supporters in Indianapolis that he hoped to follow in the moderate shoes of two predecessors, Lugar and Democrat Evan Bayh.

    "I say to all of my fellow Hoosiers out there: This isn't about politics. This isn't about one party or the other," Donnelly said.

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  • In second Mass. Senate debate, Brown and Warren engage in a slugfest

    By NBC News staff

    Republican U.S. Senator Scott Brown and his Democratic opponent Elizabeth Warren engaged in a fiery debate Monday night as Brown insisted that he has a history of working across the aisle while Warren said his attempt to appear moderate was at odds with what he says while fundraising.   

    NBC's David Gregory moderates the Massachusetts Senate debate between U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren.

    “He stands with the millionaires. He stands with the billionaires. He’s not there for people who are out of work,” said Warren, a Harvard Law School professor, according to the Boston Globe.

    Brown, meanwhile, pushed Warren to name a single Republican she could work with in the Senate.

    She finally named Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, who lost his primary fight in the spring to a more conservative Republican.

    The candidates also debated Warren’s Native American heritage. Brown asked her to release her personnel records, the Globe reported; Warren rebutted that she had learned about her heritage from her mother and that she hadn’t received advantages. 

    “To try to turn it into something bigger is just wrong,” she said, according to the Globe. Brown, 53, has suggested in the past that Warren has exploited her background to get jobs or get into schools.

    The televised debate was held at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, co-sponsored by the Boston Herald – which described the debate as a slugfest – and moderated by NBC’s David Gregory before a raucous crowd of more than 5,000. Scott and Warren will face off again on Oct. 10 in Springfield and Oct. 30 in Boston.

    When Warren listed job bills, saying that Brown had voted against them in step with the GOP, Brown countered that she had misstated the facts. When Warren tried to interrupt him, he testily replied, “I’m not a student in your classroom, please let me respond.”

    (Brown has referred to her as “Professor Warren” in debates, which Warren says she doesn’t mind, according to The Associated Press.)

    The candidates disagreed about Afghanistan, although both strayed from party lines. Warren said she would withdraw U.S. troops before the 2014 deadline set by the president; Brown said he wouldn’t want to cross the president, the AP reported.

    They even debated whether the Red Sox manager should be given another year, the Boston Herald reported. Warren said Bobby Valentine should be given another year; Brown recalled that Warren had previously predicted that Red Sox would win 90 games.

    Recent polls show Warren, 63, a Harvard Law School professor and former official in President Barack Obama's administration, maintains a slim lead over Brown, who swept into the Senate in a special election in 2010 after the death of revered Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy.

    Christopher Evans / AP

    Republican Sen. Scott Brown, left, answers a question during a debate against Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren, center, sponsored by the Boston Herald at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, Mass., Monday, Oct. 1, 2012.

    Democrats have a 51-47 advantage over Republicans in the 100-seat U.S. Senate, with two independents. However, they are defending more than 20 seats against Republican challengers, while Republicans are defending only half that many.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

     

  • Warren attacks 'rigged' political, economic system

    By Tom Curry, NBC News national affairs writer

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. – In a denunciation of an American economic and political system that she said had become badly distorted, Massachusetts Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren declared to the Democratic convention Wednesday night that “the game is rigged” against many Americans.

    Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren explains why she feels President Obama's policies will benefit America's economic future.

    “We celebrate success,” Warren said. “We just don't want the game to be rigged” – a word she used half a dozen times in her 15-minute speech.

    With the latest jobs report to be released Friday morning by the Labor Department, Warren painted a pessimistic portrait of the U.S. economy. “Our middle class has been chipped, squeezed, and hammered,” she said. “Talk to the construction worker I met from Malden, Mass., who went nine months without finding work” – an allusion to the 30 percent drop in employment in the construction sector since 2007.

    Joe Raedle / Getty Images

    Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren speaks during day two of the Democratic National Convention at Time Warner Cable Arena on September 5, 2012 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

    Slideshow: Democratic National Convention

    Without identifying any specific CEO by name, Warren said Wall Street executives had “wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs,” but she said they “still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.”

    She portrayed middle-class Americans as law-abiding, and wealthy executives as lawbreakers.

    Praising “nurses and programmers, salespeople and firefighters,” she said that “not one of them — not one — stashes their money in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.”

    The Washington Post reported in January that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has a stake in a partnership based in the Cayman Islands. But it said, “It is unclear how, if at all, Romney’s taxes were affected by the offshore arrangement.”

    NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro are in Charlotte, North Carolina for the Democratic National Convention. Today they talk about last night's speeches by Michelle Obama and Julian Castro, as well as what's coming at the convention tonight.

    Warren also tore into Romney as “the guy who said corporations are people. No, Gov. Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die.”

    Related: 2016 hopefuls find footing, test waters in Charlotte

    She said she and President Barack Obama want a country in which “everyone is held accountable. Where no one can steal your purse on Main Street, or your pension on Wall Street. “

    She also praised the role of federal spending on infrastructure and public schools saying “Obama believes in a country where we invest in education, in roads and bridges, in science, and in the future, so we can create new opportunities, so the next kid can make it big, and the kid after that, and the kid after that.”

    Warren also used her time in front of the national television audience to burnish her self-portrait for Massachusetts voters: “I grew up in a family on the ragged edges of the middle class. My daddy sold carpeting and ended up as a maintenance man. After he had a heart attack, my mom worked the phones at Sears so we could hang on to our house.” And she was waiting tables at age 13, Warren told the crowd.

    Slideshow: Democratic National Convention

    Stan Honda / AFP - Getty Images

    Democrats gather in Charlotte, N.C., to officially nominate President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as the party's candidates for the 2012 presidential election.

    Launch slideshow

    While she blasted Romney in her speech, Warren did not mention the man she is running against: Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who was elected in a special election in 2010 for the seat once held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

    Public opinion polling shows the race to be statistically tied. Winning the Massachusetts race is vital to the Democrats’ hopes of retaining control of the Senate, where they now enjoy a 53-seat majority.

  • More 2012: Warren admits to claiming Native-American status

    MASSACHUSETTS: The story that just keeps on keepin’ on…  “Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren acknowledged for the first time late Wednesday night that she told Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania that she was Native American, but she continued to insist that race played no role in her recruitment,” the Boston Globe writes. 

    Warren said in a statement, “At some point after I was hired by them, I . . . provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard. My Native American heritage is part of who I am, I’m proud of it and I have been open about it.”

    The Globe does point out: “Two key people who recruited her to Harvard have said they did not know of her purported heritage or take it into account when hiring her. The school did not promote her as a Native American when she was hired, despite the fact that it was under intense pressure to diversify its faculty with more minorities.”

  • Scott Brown cites pride in 'standing with President Obama' in ad

    Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown discusses the importance of employment for veterans.

    By Michael O'Brien

     

    Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R) is going further in linking himself to President Obama in a new radio ad supporting his re-election.

    NBC's Kelly O'Donnell flags this new radio ad in Massachusetts in which Brown, in his own voice, talks up his bipartisan initiatives and the pride he felt in attending a signing ceremony at the White House in which Obama signed a vets' jobs bill that Brown had authored.

    "Standing with President Obama on the day he signed it into law was another one of those great experiences," Brown says in the ad. "Whatever else may separate us, we are Americans first. To me, that means we need to work together now."

    Steven Senne / AP

    Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., addresses an audience during ceremonies held to honor fallen Woburn Police Officer John "Jack" Maguire, in Woburn, Mass.

    First Read has written in the past about Brown's efforts to embrace Obama as he seeks a full Senate term in deep-blue Massachusetts. His attendance of the signing ceremony referenced in the ad, along with another signing to ban insider trading on Capitol Hill, was seen as part of an effort to further that linkage in the mind of voters.

    Democrats, meanwhile, have sought to tie Brown to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor whose political organization is heavily intertwined with Brown's.

  • Warren hauls in an impressive $5.7 million

    By Tom Curry, msnbc.com

    Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren raised an impressive $5.7 million in the last three months of 2011, the Boston Globe reported Wednesday.

    Warren, a Harvard law professor and former advisor to President Barack Obama, is seeking to unseat Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who was elected in 2010 in an upset win over Democrat Martha Coakley. Brown was the first Republican to win a Senate seat in Massachusetts since 1972.

    Brown’s campaign raised $3.2 million in the final quarter of 2011, according to a statement his campaign released Monday.

    Warren is playing catch-up in fundraising. As of Sept. 30 she had $3 million in cash on hand to Brown’s $10.5 million.

    The Globe said Wednesday that Brown now has $12.8 million in cash on hand to Warren’s $8.5 million.

    Yet to be fully felt is the effect of spending by outside pro-Warren and pro-Brown groups that are not run by their campaigns or coordinated with them. But with outside, corporate and labor groups now free to run adds directly calling for a candidate’s defeat or victory, a candidate’s own fundraising prowess may be even more important than it used to be.

    Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Matt Canter said, “With the slew of unregulated, negative ads already coming from Karl Rove and other Scott Brown supporters on Wall Street, it is critical that every campaign has the grassroots support to set the record straight.”

    National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Brian Walsh called Warren “an adopted candidate of the Hollywood and San Francisco elites” but said both candidates ultimately would have enough money to run competitive races.

    Yet to be reported are fundraising figures for candidates in several other competitive Senate races.

    According to the non-partisan Cook Political Report, there are seven Democratic-held seats that are toss-ups: those in Missouri, New Mexico, Montana, Hawaii, North Dakota, Virginia, and Wisconsin. In addition another Democratic-held seat in Nebraska, being given up by retiring Sen. Ben Nelson, is rated by the Cook Political Report as “likely Republican.”

    Among Republican-held seats, the Cook Political Report rates two as toss-ups: the one in Massachusetts and Sen. Dean Heller’s seat in Nevada.

    The current party lineup in the Senate is 51 Democrats, two independent who caucus with the Democrats, and 47 Republicans.