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.
Republican primary
Candidates
John Lakian, businessman and candidate for Governor in 1982
Mitt Romney, CEO of Bain Capital and son of former Michigan Governor George W. Romney
Campaign
Romney was initially behind businessman John Lakian in the battle to win the Massachusetts Republican Party's nomination for the U.S. Senate. However, after using his personal wealth to advertise heavily on television, he gained overwhelming support at the state party convention.
Romney then defeated Lakian easily in the September 1994 Republican Party primary, with over 80 percent of the vote.
Results
General election
Candidates
William A. Ferguson (LaRouche Was Right) Mary Fridley (Libertarian) Ted Kennedy, incumbent U.S. Senator since 1962 (Democratic) Mitt Romney, CEO of Bain Capital and son of former Michigan Governor George W. Romney (Republican)
Campaign
In the general election, Kennedy faced the first serious re-election challenger of his career in the younger, telegenic, and very well-funded Romney. Romney ran as a successful entrepreneur and Washington outsider, with a strong family image and moderate stands on social issues. After two decades out of public view, his father George re-emerged during the campaign. George Romney had urged Mitt to enter the race, and moved into his son's house for its duration, serving as an unofficial advisor.
Kennedy was more vulnerable than usual in 1994 – in part because of the unpopularity of the Democratic Congress as a whole, and also because this was Kennedy's first election since the William Kennedy Smith trial in Florida, in which Kennedy had taken some public relations hits regarding his character. Kennedy was saddled not only with his recent past, but the 25th anniversary of the Chappaquiddick incident and his first wife Joan Bennett Kennedy seeking a re-negotiated divorce settlement.
Some early polls showed Romney close to Kennedy. By mid-September 1994, polls showed the race to be even. One Boston Herald/WCVB-TV poll taken after the September 20, 1994, primary showed Romney ahead, 44 percent to 42 percent, within the poll's sampling margin of error. In another September poll, Romney had a 43 to 42 percent lead. President Bill Clinton traveled to Massachusetts to campaign for Kennedy.
Religion became an issue for a while, after Kennedy's campaign said it was fair to ask Romney about his LDS Church's past policy of not allowing blacks into the priesthood. Romney accused Kennedy of having violated Senator John F. Kennedy's famous September 1960 pledge not to allow his own Catholic doctrine to inform policy, made during his ultimately victorious presidential campaign. George Romney forcefully interjected during his son's press conference, "I think it is absolutely wrong to keep hammering on the religious issues. And what Ted is trying to do is bring it into the picture."