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Barack Obama's presidential agenda was derailed today by a shock by-election defeat which threatens his flagship healthcare reform and future policy on Afghanistan and climate change.
A Republican seized one of the safest Democrat seats in the Senate — the Massachusetts seat held by Edward Kennedy until he died last year.
The defeat robbed Mr Obama of the clear 60-40 super-majority required under Senate rules to protect important legislation from being destroyed with delaying tactics called filibustering.
Democrats were today holding crisis talks to decide how to salvage the bitterly-fought healthcare Bill, one of the President's most critical first-term commitments.
It was a huge personal blow to President Obama, who raced to Boston in a fruitless attempt to save the seat, only to be rebuffed by voters on the first anniversary of his taking office.
“We can't win them all,” was the President's comment to defeated Democrat Martha Coakley in a phone call early today. Ms Coakley, the state attorney general, was being blamed by some for a lacklustre campaign.
Winner Scott Brown, a 50-year-old former male model nicknamed Senator Beefcake, immediately confirmed he would join Republican senators seeking to block the healthcare Bill.
Hailing his “great victory”, Mr Brown said: “The voters defied the odds and the experts.” Mr Brown looks set to become a colourful figure in Congress. He posed almost naked for Cosmopolitan magazine in the Eighties while in law school.
President Obama now has only months to recover before the autumn mid-term elections to Congress and of state governors, where heavy defeats could render him a lame duck.
It will increase pressure on his administration to find an early exit route from Afghanistan, affecting how long Britain can stay in the fight against the Taliban. Long-term Obama plans at risk include hopes of a package on climate change.
Opinion polls show nearly half of Americans think President Obama is not delivering on his major campaign promises. Democrats have already lost in two previous big elections since Mr Obama was inaugurated in January last year. Republicans won governors' seats in Virginia and New Jersey in November. On the basis of today's result, no Democrat is safe. Mr Brown even won in Cape Cod, where the late Mr Kennedy spent his final days.
“I have no interest in sugar-coating what happened,” said Robert Menendez, the head of the Senate Democrats' campaign committee. “There is a lot of anxiety in the country right now. Americans are understandably impatient.”
President Obama has made healthcare a signature issue, vowing to revamp an expensive private system that leaves nearly 50 million people uninsured. Republicans oppose his plans, saying it would lead to higher taxes and government meddling in healthcare decisions.
