1994 United States Senate election in Massachusetts

1994 United States Senate election in Massachusetts

← 1988 November 8, 1994 2000 →

Nominee Ted Kennedy Mitt Romney Party Democratic Republican Popular vote 1,266,011 894,005 Percentage 58.07% 41.01%

County results Municipality results Kennedy:      40–50%      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90% Romney:      40–50%      50–60%      60–70%

U.S. senator before election Ted Kennedy Democratic Elected U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy Democratic

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v t e

The 1994 United States Senate election in Massachusetts was held November 8, 1994. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy won re-election to his seventh (his sixth full) term, defeating the Republican nominee, businessman Mitt Romney.

Romney defeated his closest competitor, John Lakian, to win the Republican primary, with over 80% of the vote. He campaigned as a political moderate and Washington outsider, and posed the greatest challenge ever made against Kennedy for the Senate seat, since he first took office in 1962. Democratic congressmen across the country were struggling to maintain their seats, and Kennedy in particular was damaged by character concerns and an ongoing divorce controversy. The contest became very close.

Kennedy launched ads criticizing Romney's tenure as the leader of the company known as Bain Capital, accusing him of treating workers unfairly and taking away jobs, while also criticizing what were widely considered to be Romney's shifting political views. Romney also performed inadequately in the debates between the two candidates, and made a number of poorly received statements that reduced his standing in the polls.

In the closest Senate election of his career since after 1962, Kennedy won by a reasonably comfortable margin, despite a series of losses for Democrats around the country, including control of the US Senate. Despite Romney's loss in this race, he was later elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002, as well as U.S. Senator from Utah in 2018. He was also the Republican nominee for President of the United States in 2012, in which he lost the presidency to President Barack Obama.^[1]