The uncertainty surrounding the suddenly-too-close-to-call Massachusetts Senate special election, as well as its high stakes, has political handicappers and strategists wondering if maybe they’ve seen this one before – in 1991, when long-shot Democrat Harris Wofford seized on the health care issue to pull off a shocking Pennsylvania special election victory that sent tremors across the political landscape.
It’s hard not to notice the similarities between the 1991 Senate special election and the current Massachusetts Senate contest.
Much like Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts, Wofford, a little-known Democrat who had been appointed to the late Republican Sen. John Heinz’s seat, began the race as a distinct underdog, and few expected he would be able to overcome former Gov. Dick Thornburgh, who left his post as U.S. attorney general to run for the seat.