Martha Coakley Biography

Democrat Martha Coakley earned a share of political infamy in 2010, when she lost a special election for the U.S. Senate seat held for years by liberal lion Edward M. Kennedy. In what the Boston Globe called a “crushing loss,” Coakley was beaten by Republican Scott Brown for what had been considered one of the country’s safest Democratic seats.

Martha Coakley earned a B.A. degree from Williams College in 1975, and a law degree from Boston University in 1979. That same year she was hired as a civil litigator for the Boston firm of Parker, Coulter, Daley & White. She became an assistant District Attorney for Middlesex County in 1986, becoming chief of the Middlesex child abuse prosecution unit in 1991.

Coakley was elected Middlesex District Attorney in 1998, and then became the state’s first female Attorney General in 2007. Her loss to Brown on January 19, 2010 was was cheered by conservatives nationwide, as it ended the previous 60-40 Democratic edge in the U.S. Senate.

Martha Coakley ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2014, losing to Republican Charlie Baker. Her term as Attorney General ended in 2015.