2002 United States Senate election in Massachusetts

← 1996 November 5, 2002 2008 →

Nominee John Kerry Michael Cloud Party Democratic Libertarian Popular vote 1,605,976 369,807 Percentage 80.03% 18.43%

Municipal results

U.S. senator before election John Kerry Democratic Elected U.S. Senator John Kerry Democratic

Elections in Massachusetts
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v t e

The 2002 United States Senate election in Massachusetts took place on November 5, 2002. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator John Kerry won re-election to a fourth term against Libertarian Michael Cloud, with no Republican filing to run.

The lack of a Republican Party candidate caused Cloud to receive the largest percentage of votes for a U.S. Senate candidate in the Libertarian Party's history, though this record has since been eclipsed by Joe Miller in Alaska in 2016 and Ricky Dale Harrington Jr. in Arkansas in 2020. Cloud also won the largest number of raw votes for a Libertarian candidate at the time, since eclipsed by Harrington.

Kerry's support for the invasion of Iraq also prompted a late write-in challenge by anti-war candidate Randall Forsberg.

Democratic primary

Major candidates

Democratic

• John Kerry, incumbent U.S. Senator elected first in 1984

Libertarian

• Michael Cloud

General election

Predictions

Results

Results by county
Kerry:

  70–80%

  80–90%

2002 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts^[2][3]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Democratic	John F. Kerry (incumbent)	1,605,976	80.03%	27.29
	Libertarian	Michael Cloud	369,807	18.43%	N/A
	Independent	Randall Forsberg (write-in)	24,898	1.24%	N/A
	Write-in		6,077	0.30%	0.24
Total votes			2,006,758	100.00%