Republican Charlie Baker Elected Mass. Governor
With 99-percent of the precincts reporting at 6 a.m. Wednesday, Baker led Coakley by 37,881 votes.
Watch: Charlie Baker Addresses Supporters
Coakley did not concede or speak on election night. She returned home with her husband to wait until the results were officially final.
Her running mate, Steve Kerrigan, addressed supporters late Tuesday night saying they believe every vote deserved to be counted.
Baker, 57, is the former CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. He worked hard to reach out to independent and Democratic voters and women as he tried to project a more moderate image than four years ago, when he lost to incumbent Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick. Patrick opted not to seek election to a third term.
Baker also had to overcome a few self-inflicted stumbles and criticism from Coakley and Democrats that he was out of touch with ordinary voters.
The win puts the governor’s office back in Republican hands for the first time since Gov. Mitt Romney’s term ended in 2007.
His running mate, Karyn Polito, introduced Baker as the next governor of Massachusetts early Wednesday morning. Baker thanked his supporters for staying up so late, and said he respected Coakley’s decision to wait until all of the votes were counted.
“I talked to her a couple minutes ago and she said she really wants to wait until the morning to see the final results,” Baker told the crowd just after 1 a.m. Wednesday.
“That’s fine, in politics, in elections every vote counts. I’m perfectly fine with giving her until the morning.”
Coakley’s campaign advisor, Doug Rubin, told WBZ’s Jon Keller that they thought the race was too close to call and may pursue a recount.
Governor Deval Patrick has not commented on the election results yet.
However, a tweet on his account went up briefly Wednesday at 6:51 a.m. congratulating the “Gov-elect & LG-elect” with a link to the Transition 2015 page of the state’s website.
The tweet was pulled down minutes later with no explanation.
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