Warren projected as winner of MA Senate race

BOSTON (WWLP) - In what has been one of the most watched political races of 2012, Democrat Elizabeth Warren has come out on top in the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts.

NBC News is projecting Warren as the winner of the seat, defeating incumbent Republican Senator Scott Brown.

The mood has been jubilant at Warren's victory party at the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston, while Brown is expected to soon deliver a concession speech at his party at the nearby Park Plaza.

Warren was born and raised in Oklahoma, and has been a lawyer since 1976. Specializing in bankruptcy law, she has been a Harvard University professor since the 1990’s. President Obama nominated her to be the first head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency she helped create, but her nomination was withdrawn amid opposition from Republicans. She has never held elected office, but was recruited to be the Democratic Party’s candidate to challenge Brown, who they viewed as one of the GOP’s most vulnerable incumbents.

She is the first woman to have been elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, and only the second to be elected to represent any part of the state in the entire Congress.

Brown was first elected to the Senate in a special election in January 2010. In a surprising come-from-behind win, the little-known Republican state senator from Wrentham defeated the Democratic nominee, Attorney General Martha Coakley. Winning the seat long occupied by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, Brown became the first Republican elected to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate since Edward Brooke was re-elected in 1972.