Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen fended off Republican challenger Scott Brown to retain her Senate seat in New Hampshire, much-needed relief for Democrats, who sweated the results in the Granite State.
ABC News called the race for Shaheen less than an hour after the polls closed in New Hampshire.
Brown, who lost his 2012 re-election bid in Massachusetts to Democrat Elizabeth Warren, was given little chance to win after establishing residency in a new state so close to the election. Democrats dismissed the former Fox News contributor as more interested in cultivating his national image than representing New Hampshire residents.
New Hampshire, which has been fertile political territory for moderate Republicans, was more accommodating to Brown than many pundits predicted. And Brown made repeated appeals to the independent voters in the state who had soured on President Obama.
At times, the 2014 battle for New Hampshire played like a repeat of the 2012 Massachusetts Senate race, with Warren campaigning on behalf of Shaheen against him.
Most recently, Brown appeared to benefit from a heightened focus on issues of national security in the wake of the Ebola scare and the campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Still, it wasn’t enough to win over New Hampshire voters, who gave Shaheen an edge on economic issues.
